Simple problem with alignment in Latex table

Question

Hi

I have a simple alignment question for Latex tables. At the moment it looks as follows:

\begin{center}
  \begin{tabular}{| c | l | l | }
   \hline
    \tt {a} & $a = b + c + d + e + f + g + $ \\ 
        & $    e + f + g + h + i + j$ \\ \hline
    \end{tabular}
\end{center}

The problem is, that the output looks as follows:

a = b + c + ...
e + f + ....

However, I would like to have it looks as

a = b + c + ...
    e + f + ...

Anyone an idea how I could do that in a table?

Thanks, Klaus

Answer 1

Please use the align environment for multiline equations.

---

You can add a \phantom{a = } to indicate the should-be-existing spaces.

    & $\phantom{a = }e + f + g + h + i + j$ \\ \hline

Answer 2

As KennyTM pointed out, you shouldn't typeset multiline equations using tables like this. But if you must do it, you could do it like this:

\begin{center}
  \begin{tabular}{| c | l @{} l | }
   \hline
    \tt {a} & $a =\;$ & $b + c + d + e + f + g + $ \\ 
        & & $e + f + g + h + i + j$ \\ \hline
    \end{tabular}
\end{center}

Answer 3

The usual way is to make an additional column for the a = part; right-aligning it, and removing spacing with the next column for aesthetics:

\begin{tabular}{ c r @{} l } % you have one superfluous l
  \tt {a} & $a =$ & $b + c + d + e + f + g +$ \\ 
          &       & $e + f + g + h + i + j$ \\
\end{tabular}

Maybe you will need an explicit space after the = sign, so that it's properly spaced with the b.

Another solution would be to have a multiline equation in a single cell of the table, but that amounts to the same (you will need an array environment or something similar to wrap the left part).