<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Hi Don,<div><br><div><div>On Jan 31, 2011, at 4:29 AM, Don Green Dragon wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>Hello Manfred,<br><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#540000"><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#144FAE"><br></font></font><blockquote type="cite">Another possibility:<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">\begin{tabular}{c|c|c}<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">A & B & C \\<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">\hline<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">\noalign{\vskip-3pt}<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">F & F & F<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">\end{tabular}<br></blockquote><br>\noalign ! Eh? <br><br>To see what \noalign produces --- for those who do not know --- replace Manfred's <br>"\noalign{\vskip-3pt}" with something like "A simple phrase" and see what you get.<br><br>I had to modify the \vskip amount in order to "get it right". Very nice! However, the vertical rules may not be continuous --- each may be 'broken' --- and if you substitute "\noalign{\vskip 5pt}" in Manfred's example you will see the breaks. I had to use {\vskip Npt} with N=0 in order that the 'breaks' do not appear. When N was set to -1, -2, -3 (points), there were no breaks in the vertical rules, but the line "F F F" was raised too much. <br><br>Since Graetzer does not have \noalign in his index, the LaTeX Companion came to the rescue with a rather complicated example. But on page 904, I found the following illuminating (listed amongst Error Messages):<br>"<br>Misplace \noalign<br>The TeX primitive \noalign is internally used to place "nonaligned" material between rows of alignment displays. It is therefore allowed only directly following the command that finishes a row. For example, you get this error when you use \hline outside of array or tabular, or not directly after \\ within these environments.<br>"<br>Simple blunder spawns interesting solutions! :-) Thanks.<br><br><br>Don Green Dragon<br><a href="mailto:fergdc@Shaw.ca">fergdc@Shaw.ca</a><br><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#144FAE"><br></font></font></div></blockquote><div><br></div>\noalign is a remnant from Don Knuth's original TeX alignment (The TeX Book, Chapter 22), meanwhile superseded by the LaTeX tabular environment. I use it sometimes in constructions like this (xcolor package must be loaded):</div><div><div><br></div><div>\begin{tabular}{c | c | c}</div><div>A & B & C \\</div><div>\noalign{\color{red}\hrule height2pt}</div><div>F & F & F\\</div><div>\hline</div><div>\end{tabular}</div><div><br></div><div>I don't know how this could be done without recourse to the \noalign primitive. </div><div><br></div><div>Manfred</div></div><div><br></div></div></body></html>