How do you make the squares all the same size? - TeX

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Top Answer

frougon

Assuming you want all *cells* to be *squares* of the same size:

```
\documentclass[tikz, border=1mm]{standalone}
\usetikzlibrary{matrix}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \matrix[
    matrix of nodes,
    row sep =-\pgflinewidth,
    column sep = -\pgflinewidth,
    nodes in empty cells,
    nodes={rectangle, draw, anchor=center, minimum size=2em},
  ]
  {  &   &  &  &   & \\
     & 1 &  &  & 2 & \\
     &   &  &  &   & \\
     &   &  &  &   & \\
     & 3 &  &  & 4 & \\
     &   &  &  &   & \\
  };
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
```

![out.png](/image?hash=4420bc7233dd406c60bc165bb0f495e5f8afb3be3a4d053d9a4ed8e39f17d585)

In case you want the cells to be *rectangles* with chosen dimensions, you can replace `minimum size=2em` with, for instance, `minimum width=3em, minimum height=2em`.

Note that since your MWE doesn't load the `array` package, it has ugly line joints:

![image.png](/image?hash=e07794fcd63d977f4cb637ae4b0866e4604feefbcb0475de03ce7a4f98599fc7)

Answer #2

barbara beeton

You can put `\phantom{0}` in each empty column in the first row.

All digits are the same width, so this will force the width of all columns to be the same.


```
\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}
$
\begin{array}{|l|l|l|l|l|l|}
\hline \phantom{0} & \phantom{0} & \phantom{0} & \phantom{0} & \phantom{0} & \phantom{0} \\
\hline  & 1 & & & 2 & \\
\hline  & & & & & \\
\hline  & & & & & \\
\hline  & 3 & & & 4 & \\
\hline  & & & & & \\
\hline
\end{array}
$
\end{document}
```

![Screenshot 2022-05-20 at 17.50.11.png](/image?hash=a21f6bd2640508807afe39bee69e27ca00293c266eab40f1bb5c9bd041bcea50)

Answer #3

samcarter

And just for completeness, here a possible solution with `tabularray`:

```
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{tabularray}
\UseTblrLibrary{amsmath}

\begin{document}

$
\begin{+array}{
  vlines,
  hlines, 
  colspec={*{6}{Q[0.25cm,c]}},
}
& & & & & \\
& 1 & & & 2 & \\
& & & & & \\
& & & & & \\
& 3 & & & 4 & \\
& & & & & \\
\end{+array}
$

\end{document}
```


![Screenshot 2022-05-23 at 15.02.53.png](/image?hash=acd7d7d135b658c8b067b95da531bdcf3f9ab8d77bd70b66b2e02988493e4856)

Answer #4

निरंजन

You can also try this:

```
\documentclass[border=0.5cm]{standalone}
\usepackage{calc}
\usepackage{array}

\begin{document}
$
\begin{array}{%
    |*{6}{p{\widthof{0}}|}%
  }
  \hline & & & & & \\
  \hline & 1 & & & 2 & \\
  \hline & & & & & \\
  \hline & & & & & \\
  \hline & 3 & & & 4 & \\
  \hline & & & & & \\
  \hline
\end{array}
$
\end{document}
```

(*One benefit is that you don't have to load a package which has camel-cased environments :joy:*)

Answer #5

samcarter

As an alternative to using the normal `array`, you could use the `nicematrix` package and set the width of the columns:

```
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{nicematrix}

\begin{document}
$
\begin{NiceArray}{|c|c|c|c|c|c|}[columns-width = 0.15cm]
\hline & & & & & \\
\hline & 1 & & & 2 & \\
\hline & & & & & \\
\hline & & & & & \\
\hline & 3 & & & 4 & \\
\hline & & & & & \\
\hline
\end{NiceArray}
$
\end{document}
```

![Screenshot 2022-05-20 at 15.19.48.png](/image?hash=7c0b3dc0f8eaddeddc3d3b1013ac7861b994e915fe17d61023b865ebb23b379a)

Those historic reasons are just the usual "at the time there was not enough memory" and "once `array` got out, fixing misbehaviours of LaTeX's standard implementation, things couldn't be changed anymore for backwards compatibility" (those are not actual quotes, but should cover the reasons quite accurately)

As Skillmon said, without `array.sty`, you get the standard LaTeX implementation of `tabular`-like environments, which is *very* old and has these quirks. Among other things, `array.sty` improves the appearance of rules, as its manual says (§2.1, *Handling of rules*): > With standard LaTeX boxed tabulars actually have strange corners because the horizontal rules end in the middle of the vertical ones. This looks very unpleasant when a large `\arrayrulewidth` is chosen. (...) Just compile the code given in the question and zoom in enough on the borders; you'll see the same as in my last screenshot.

The default implementation of the `tabular`/`array` rules has a few limitations/issues. The rules don't take up any space (so the padding to the sides of a column is different if a column has a rule next to it), and they don't overprint far enough to the side (which is a side effect of the fact that they don't take up any space), so the horizontal rules only go to the centre of each line (which leaves those strange artefacts). As a rule of thumb: Load `array`, it really is just not part of the kernel for historic reasons.

@निरंजन, re: [your answer](#a2267), a maybe preferable column type would be `W{c}{\widthof{0}}` having the benefit to not result in multi-line output but throw a warning if the cell contents should get wider than the specified width.

Glad that it helped! The `|*{6}{p{\widthof{0}}|}` part is as follows: The `array` package provides a shorthand for writing identical column identifiers. The syntax for that is as follows. `*{n}{c}`; where `n` stands for the number of columns which in your case was 6 and `c` stands for the column definition which in your case was `p{w}` where `p` is a column identifier which starts a fully justified paragraph of the specified `w`idth. Note that `p` isn't always identical to the `l`eft allignment, but in smaller cases like yours it produces similar results. I provided `\widthof{0}` to your `p` where `\widthof` is a macro provided by package `calc` which calculates the width of the argument. (I wasn't aware that the width of all the numbers is equal, thanks @barbara!). Now imagine that `p{\widthof{0}` is one unit like your `l` which you want 6 times, but with vertical lines around it. One caution to be taken here is not adding both the vertical lines, because `array` will simply multiply things, so if you have, say `*{6}{|l|}`, your output would be `|l||l||l||l||l||l|`. Notice double `||`. To avoid this you need to only put the right `|` and one left `|` outside the scope of multiplication. Now I think that part would make sense to you.

5 Answers