Fancy Latex Tables
Do you like to create funny graphics like the following for your paper?
Masters of Illustrator can probably chop-chop-compose such a thing in a flash. I, however, abruptly failed as I tried to insert formulae. Why not directly script it in latex, I thought. So I unearthed the big old latex manuals and learned about \multicolumn and \cline. Eventually, I came up with the following code:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 | \begin{tabular}{|l|c|l|c|l|} \multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{2}{c}{$e_i$} &\multicolumn{2}{c}{$e_{i+1}$}\\ \multicolumn{1}{c}{$D$} &\multicolumn{2}{c}{$\overbrace{\hspace{1cm}}^{}$} &\multicolumn{2}{c}{$\overbrace{\hspace{1cm}}^{}$} \\\cline{1-1} $P_1$ &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} \\\cline{1-1} $\vdots$ &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{$W$} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} \\\cline{1-1} \cline{3-3} $P_{i}$ &$\longleftrightarrow$ &$V_0$ &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{$W$} \\\cline{3-3} \cline{1-1}\cline{5-5} $P_{i+1}$ &$\longleftrightarrow$ &$V_1$ &$\longleftrightarrow$ &$V_0$ \\\cline{3-3} \cline{1-1} \cline{5-5} $P_{i+2}$ &$\longleftrightarrow$ &$V_2$ &$\longleftrightarrow$ &$V_1$ \\\cline{3-3} \cline{1-1} \cline{5-5} $\vdots$ &$\longleftrightarrow$ &$\vdots$ &$\longleftrightarrow$ &$V_2$ \\\cline{3-3} \cline{1-1}\cline{5-5} $P_{i+k}$ &$\longleftrightarrow$ &$V_k$ &$\longleftrightarrow$ &$\vdots$ \\\cline{3-3} \cline{1-1} \cline{5-5} $P_{i+k+1}$ & \multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{}& $\longleftrightarrow$ &$V_k$ \\\cline{1-1} \cline{5-5} $\vdots$ &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} \\\cline{1-1} $P_m$ &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} \\\cline{1-1} \multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} \\ \end{tabular} |
and
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 | \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|} \hline $P_1$ &$\hdots$ &$P_{i}$ &$P_{i+1}$ &$P_{i+2}$ &$\hdots$ &$P_{i+k}$ &$\hdots$ &$P_m$ \\\hline \multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{$\updownarrow$} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{$\updownarrow$} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{$\updownarrow$} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{$\hdots$} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{$\updownarrow$} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{} \\\cline{3-7} \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & & $V_{0}$ & $V_{1}$ & $V_{2}$ & $\hdots$ & $V_{k}$ & \multicolumn{2}{c}{} \\\cline{3-7} \end{tabular} |
The trick is to create borderless cells using \multicolumn and then fill in horizontal lines with \cline. You’re welcome. Now back to work!