General ⇒ Text in tables butting up against the top line in a cell

[Hessiess]

If I put text into a table, the top of the characters are almost tutching the tip line in the cell, I can use \midrule instead which adds a small gap at the top of a cell, but then there are white gaps on the vertical lines of the table.

Thanks.

[localghost]

Build a minimal working example (MWE) that gives us an idea of the problem.


Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten¹

[phi]

In professional tables there are no vertical lines, and the booktabs package does not support them, so leave them out.
Otherwise you can redefine \arraystretch or add a strut to the problematic cells.

[Hessiess]

Build a minimal working example (MWE) that gives us an idea of the problem.


Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten¹

Thanks

Code: Select all

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper]{article}

\usepackage{booktabs}

\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{| l | p{8cm}|}
\hline
\textbf{{\Large{Heading}}}	& \textbf{{\Large{This text is touching the top line}}}\\
\hline
\textbf{hline}  		& this text is almost touching the top edge of the cell\\
\midrule
\textbf{Midrule}		& The gap between the top of the text and the cell edge is
				  better, but now there are gaps in the vertical lines\\
\hline
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

In professional tables there are no vertical lines, and the booktabs package does not support them, so leave them out.
Otherwise you can redefine \arraystretch or add a strut to the problematic cells.

The vertical lines are nessiserry to separate the table elements, otherwise it just looks like one line of text, Il look at arrayctretch.

[localghost]

[...] The vertical lines are nessiserry to separate the table elements, otherwise it just looks like one line of text, Il look at arrayctretch.

You can always put some horizontal space between the columns. The code below demonstrates two possible solutions each for stretching the row height and the space between columns.

Code: Select all

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{array,booktabs}
\usepackage[font=small,labelfont=bf]{caption}
\usepackage[margin=2cm]{geometry}

\setlength{\parindent}{0em}

\begin{document}

  \begin{table}[!ht]
    \centering
    \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.2}
    \begin{tabular}{|l|p{8cm}|} \hline
      \textbf{{\Large{Heading}}}   & \textbf{{\Large{This text is touching the top line}}} \\ \hline
      \textbf{hline} & this text is almost touching the top edge of the cell \\ \hline
      \textbf{hline} & The gap between the top of the text and the cell edge is better, but now there are gaps in the vertical lines \\ \hline
    \end{tabular}
    \caption{Table with stretched height of the rows}\label{tab:arraystretch}
  \end{table}

  \begin{table}[!ht]
    \centering
    \begin{tabular}{l@{\qquad}p{8cm}} \toprule
      \textbf{{\Large{Heading}}}   & \textbf{{\Large{This text is touching the top line}}} \\ \midrule
      \textbf{midrule} & this text is almost touching the top edge of the cell \\ \midrule
      \textbf{midrule} & The gap between the top of the text and the cell edge is better, but now there are gaps in the vertical lines \\ \bottomrule
    \end{tabular}
    \caption{Table with \textsf{booktabs} package and manual space between columns}\label{tab:booktabs-manual}
  \end{table}

  \begin{table}[!ht]
    \centering
    \setlength{\tabcolsep}{5mm}
    \begin{tabular}{lp{8cm}} \toprule
      \textbf{{\Large{Heading}}}   & \textbf{{\Large{This text is touching the top line}}} \\ \midrule
      \textbf{midrule} & this text is almost touching the top edge of the cell \\ \midrule
      \textbf{midrule} & The gap between the top of the text and the cell edge is better, but now there are gaps in the vertical lines \\ \bottomrule
    \end{tabular}
    \caption{Table with \textsf{booktabs} package and fixed space between columns}\label{tab:booktabs-fixed}
  \end{table}

  \begin{table}[!ht]
    \centering
    \setlength{\extrarowheight}{2pt}  % needs array package
    \begin{tabular}{|l|p{8cm}|} \hline
      \textbf{{\Large{Heading}}}   & \textbf{{\Large{This text is touching the top line}}} \\ \hline
      \textbf{hline} & this text is almost touching the top edge of the cell \\ \hline
      \textbf{hline} & The gap between the top of the text and the cell edge is better, but now there are gaps in the vertical lines \\ \hline
    \end{tabular}
    \caption{Table with extra height for the rows}\label{tab:extrarowheight}
  \end{table}
\end{document}