[texhax] difference between tabular* and tabularx?

[Paul Tremblay]

On Mon, Apr 17, 2006 at 02:15:21PM +0200, Uwe Lück wrote:
> 
> Sorry, my English may have been insuffienct here.
> 
> Suppose you think of a 2 by 2 table, each cell consisting of
> six words of approximately equal length. Suppose with certain
> parameters for tabular with two `p' columns, you get
> 
>        Aaa1 Aaa2    Bbb1 Bbb2
>        Aaa3 Aaa4    Bbb3 Bbb4
>        Aaa5 Aaa6    Bbb5 Bbb6
> 
>        Ccc1 Ccc2    Ddd1 Ddd2
>        Ccc3 Ccc4    Ddd2 Ddd3
>        Ccc5 Ccc6    Ddd4 Ddd5
> 
> With a larger sum width and with tabular*, you may get
> 
>   Aaa1 Aaa2              Bbb1 Bbb2
>   Aaa3 Aaa4              Bbb3 Bbb4
>   Aaa5 Aaa6              Bbb5 Bbb6
> 
>   Ccc1 Ccc2              Ddd1 Ddd2
>   Ccc3 Ccc4              Ddd2 Ddd3
>   Ccc5 Ccc6              Ddd4 Ddd5
> 
> instead. So the cells have been typeset exactly as before;
> only the space between the columns -- or the placement of
> the cells -- has changed. --
> Now when you replace tabular* by tabularx with the same
> sum width and `X' in place of the `p' columns, you get
> 
>   Aaa1 Aaa2 Aaa3    Bbb1 Bbb2 Bbb3
>   Aaa4 Aaa5 Aaa6    Bbb4 Bbb5 Bbb6
> 
>   Ccc1 Ccc2 Ccc3    Ddd1 Ddd2 Ddd3
>   Ccc4 Ccc5 Ccc6    Ddd4 Ddd5 Ddd6
> 
> (I have aimed at a center after 18 equal-width letters.
>  I hope very much that you see this with your E-Mail program,
>  while I have tried my one with Courier instead of Arial the
>  first time in my life.)
> -- So you need two lines less then with tabular*
> -- i.e., as I meant, you "save 2 lines".
> 

Okay, that is now clear! Yes, I spent a year in Germany, and getting
the exact phrase in anohter language is always difficult.

Thanks for the clarification.

Paul


-- 

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*Paul Tremblay         *
*phthenry at iglou.com    *
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