Graphics, Figures & Tables ⇒ Tabular too big for page: Alternatives?

[Tronn]

Hello everyone,

I'm currently writing my Master thesis and I'm in the final stage before submitting it. There are still some formating issues of which a few are severe :-/ I'm almost completely new to LaTeX and only had to start using it to write my thesis because it contains a lot of calculations. For these, I used the tabular expression to align them. It looks like this:

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\newenvironment{derivation}
	{\vspace{8pt}\begin{tabular}[b]{p{0.3cm} p{0.2cm} p{15cm}}}
	{\end{tabular}\vspace{8pt}}

\newcommand{\derstart}[1]{\\ \\ (#1) &	$=$	&}

I call the environment like this:

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\begin{derivation}

  & & This is the first line\\
  \derstart{1} This is the second line
  \derstart{2} And this is the third one
  \derstart{3} Sometimes, lines will be quite long and they need to break, which, of course, should not be a complete break (for the row), but only for the 'cell'. This is why I added p's to the definition of the derivation-environment, so I could use \\. 
  \derstart{$\alpha$} The final line sometimes needs a different symbol so I can better refer to it

\end{derivation}

The output should be something like this (without borders):

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___ | _ | This is the first line
(1) |  =  | This is the second line
(2) |  =  | And this is the third one
(3) |  =  | Sometimes, lines will be quite long and they
_________ need to break, which, of course ...
(a) |  =  | The final line sometimes ...

It worked out quite well until the point where one calculation took more than one page. It went on over the footer and looked bad, of course.

Someone gave me the hint to use the enumeration environment instead, like this:

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\newenvironment{deri1} 
   {\begin{enumerate}[label={\arabic*~=}]} 
   {\end{enumerate}}

It looks neat, but I cannot change the label for specific lines.

Do you have a recommendation what I could do?

Thanks a lot in advance for your time!

[Johannes_B]

The someone is Ulrike Fischer and this is a crosspost to goLaTeX.

[Tronn]

This is true; sorry! Time is running out and I'm kind of stressed because I'm desperately trying to get the formating done until Friday :-/

[Tronn]

Hi everyone,

My problem has been solved in the other forum. I can use it like this:

Definitions:

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\newenvironment{deri1} 
   {\begin{enumerate}} 
   {\end{enumerate}} 
\newcommand{\deristart}[1]{\ifthenelse{\equal{#1}{}}{\item[~]\relax}{\item[(#1)~=]\relax}}

Application:

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\begin{deri1}
	\deristart{} first line w/o anything, but indented correctly
	\deristart{1} second line
\end{deri1}

In case I want a manual line break followed by a square bracket, I have to use it like this:
\deristart{} this is a line \\ \relax [with a break and a square bracket], but it works!

Sorry again for the cross-post!