Crthuky

I realise that the booktabs package does not want me to use vertical lines in my tables. However, I like vertical lines in my tables. Therefore, I am hoping there is a workaround to a problem that booktabs clearly does not think should even be an issue.

Here is my table:

Is it possible to join all the vertical lines?

Here is the code:

begintable[h]
begincentering
scalebox.8
small
begintabular c 
hline
bf HD Level & & & & \
midrule[2pt]
multirow2*1 & it Rep-tile: & $1,2$ & $1,3$ & $2,3$ \
cmidrule2-5
 & it Encoding: & 1 & 2 & 3 \
midrule[2pt]
multirow2*2 & it Rep-tile: & $2$ & $3$ & \
cmidrule2-5
 & it Encoding: & 1 & 2 & \
hline
endtabular
captionsmallbf Bla bla
labeltab:SMuTexEncoding
endcentering
endtable

Many thanks.

You can have thick hlines with the makecell package and its Xhlinewidth and Xclinecol1-col2width commands. You can replace the vertical spacing added by booktabs around horizontal rules (that's responsible for non joining vertical rules) with the cellspace package; it lets you define minimal vertical spacingabove and below cells of a given column, prefixing its specifier with the letter S.

I also took the opportunity to define a set command, based on an example in the documentation of the mathtools package, that produces better horizontal spacing and variable-sized braces

documentclassarticle
usepackagemakecell
usepackagemultirow
usepackagehhline
usepackagecellspace
setlengthcellspacetoplimit5pt
setlengthcellspacebottomlimit5pt
usepackagemathtools
DeclarePairedDelimiterXset[1]nonscript,#1nonscript,

begindocument

begintable[!htb]
centering
small
begintabular
hline
bfseries HD Level & & & & \
Xhline2pt
multirow2*1 & Rep-tile: & $set1,2$ & $set1,3$ & $set2,3$ \
cline2-5
 & Encoding: & 1 & 2 & 3 \
Xhline2pt
multirow2*2 & Rep-tile: & $set2$ & $set3$ & \
cline2-5
 & Encoding: & 1 & 2 & \
hline
endtabular
captionsmallbf Bla bla
labeltab:SMuTexEncoding
endtable

enddocument

If you want to have coloured rules, it's more complelex: the arrayrulecolor command (from the colortbl package) doesn't work. A workaround consistsin using the hhline package, setting arrayrulewidth to 0pt and colouring the interrule space of a double rule. Demo:

begintable[!htb]
centering
smallarrayrulecolorred
begintabular
hline
bfseries HD Level & & & & \
Xhline2pt
multirow2*1 & Rep-tile: & $set1,2$ & $set1,3$ & $set2,3$ \
cline2-5
 & Encoding: & 1 & 2 & 3 \
Xhline2pt
multirow2*2 & Rep-tile: & $set2$ & $set3$ & \
cline2-5
 & Encoding: & 1 & 2 & \
hhline>arrayrulewidth = 0ptdoublerulesep = 2pt doublerulesepcolorred=====
endtabular
captionsmallbf Bla bla
labeltab:SMuTexEncoding
endtable

I would never do what I did in the first table, but it is your choice, not mine. I just offer a much nicer alternative. However, please:

• Do not use it and bf: Does it matter if I use textit or it, bfseries or bf, etc
  


• Do not manually modify the size of the table nor the style of the caption, it's not semantic. What if you later decide that the captions should not be bold, but you've already add bfseries to 50 captions? Are you going to remove them by hand? Well, you'll have to. Or you use packages that modify the styles globally. (Both things can be found on this website, however, simply look into the documentation of packages caption and float.)


• Do not specify [h] float placement alone, you can expect bad things happening.


• 
  centering is not an environment, it is a command: centering.


• Your scalebox has no effect whatsoever since the thing you scale is the macro small, which doesn't output anything. Use either scalebox or small (or rather none of them).

documentclassarticle

usepackagearray
newcolumntypeC>rule[-1.5ex]0pt4.5exc

makeatletter
defHline% a thicker hline
 noalignifnum0=`fihrule @height 1pt futurelet
 reserved@a@xhline
makeatother

usepackagebooktabs
newcommandMidrulemidrule[heavyrulewidth]

begindocument

begintable
centering
begintabular c 
Hline
 bfseries HD Level &&&&\
hline
 1 & itshape Rep-tile: & $1,2$ & $1,3$ & $2,3$ \
cline2-5
 & itshape Encoding: & 1 & 2 & 3 \
Hline
 2 & itshape Rep-tile: & $2$ & $3$ & \
cline2-5
 & itshape Encoding: & 1 & 2 & \
Hline
endtabular
captionBla bla
labeltab:SMuTexEncoding
endtable


begintable
centering
begintabular c >itshapel c c c toprule
bfseries HD Level\Midrule
1 & Rep-tile: & $1,2$ & $1,3$ & $2,3$ \cmidrule2-5
 & Encoding: & 1 & 2 & 3 \Midrule
2 & Rep-tile: & $2$ & $3$ & \cmidrule2-5
 & Encoding: & 1 & 2 & \bottomrule
endtabular
captionBla bla
labeltab:SMuTexEncoding
endtable

enddocument

use clinei-j instead of hline