[OS X TeX] suppress vertical line in table

[George Gratzer]

Did you try the package my book recommends: booktabs?

GG

On Jan 28, 2008, at 1:49 PM, Nathan Sanders wrote:

> On Jan 28, 2008, at 1:57 PM, George Gratzer wrote:
>
>> If you check my book, I point out that most vertical line should be  
>> suppressed.
>
> In general, for most ordinary tables, you're absolutely right.
>
> However, there are many cases where various people may reasonably  
> find that they want/need vertical lines.  For example, perceptual  
> confusion matrixes are very difficult to read without vertical  
> lines.  A mathematician writing about algorithms for filling in  
> magic squares would certainly want vertical lines.  In linguistics,  
> there are special tabular objects in Optimality Theory in which  
> different kinds of vertical lines mark different meanings (solid for  
> known dominance, dashed for unknown dominance).  I'm sure numerous  
> other people in other fields could come up with plenty of other  
> examples.
>
> Of course, one might argue that such objects should be done as  
> pictures, but by and large, these objects *are* tabular in nature,  
> filled primarily with text, and you generally want that text to  
> match exactly with the main body text, perhaps even making use of  
> macros.  This can be trivially guaranteed with the tabular  
> environment; but it's not so trivial if you draw the object in a  
> different program and import the graphics (you have to make sure  
> that your drawing program has access to the same fonts that TeX does  
> and that you can set the font sizes exactly the same, and of course,  
> you have no access to your macros).
>
> So, yes, in most ordinary data tables, vertical lines won't be  
> needed and shouldn't be used, but an independent need for vertical  
> lines in tables still exists, and it's a shame that they are not  
> easier to deal with in TeX.  (I had to write my own package for  
> doing Optimal Theory tableaux, because the tabular environment is  
> just so abysmally insufficient for a variety of reasons.)
>
> Nathan
>
> --
> Nathan Sanders
> Linguistics Program
> Williams College
> http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/
>
>
>
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