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topnush
How do I make all the squares the same size in the following MWE?

```
\documentclass[]{article}


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

This is what is currently looks like:

![Screenshot from 2022-05-20 11-18-43.png](/image?hash=3a87c0013228107d58ee5eb41a06c0161c30ab57b5efc072ddfce21e0f968d42)
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)

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