Tugboat Reprint: A new implementation of LaTeX's tabular and array environment

June 19, 1991

by Frank Mittelbach

This document describes a new implementation of the LaTeX array- and tabular- environments. The special merits of this implementation are further options to format columns and the fact that fragile LaTeX-commands don't have to be \protect'ed any more within those environments.
Only a brief part of this document is available for online viewing through Inform. The entire document is available at:

• Postscript: http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/software/tex/array.ps
• PDF: http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/software/tex/array.pdf

This article describes a new implementation of the LaTeX array- and tabular- environments. The special merits of this implementation are further options to format columns and the fact that fragile LaTeX-commands don't have to be \protect'ed any more within those environments.

At the same time it shows a new -- and in our opinion sensible -- way of documenting TeX-macros: This article is the style-file that is to be used. All we need in addition to it is a short TeX-program which visualizes the comments and puts the definitions in verbatim mode.

Introduction

The reader should be familiar with the general structure of the environments mentioned above. Further information can be found in Lamport's LaTeX - A Document Preparation System (Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1986). The additional options which can be used in the preamble as well as those which now have a slightly different meaning are described in table 1.

Additionally we introduce a new parameter called \extrarowheight. If it takes a positive length, the value of the parameter is added to the normal height of every row of the table, while the depth will remain the same. This is important for tables with horizontal lines because those lines normally touch the capital letters.