Guide to LaTeX (4th Edition) (Tools and Techniques

104 Chapter 4. Displayed Text
The entries ‘Day’ and ‘Subj.’ are raised in the same way as ‘Demoted’ was in
the soccer table. To simplify its application, one can introduce a user-defined
command with
\newcommand{\rb}[1]{\raisebox{1.5ex}[0pt]{#1}} (see Section 8.3.2)
so that \rb{entry} behaves the same as \raisebox{1.5ex}[0pt]{entry}. This
can be used, for example, as \rb{ Mon.} or \rb{UNIX} to elevate the entries by
the necessary amount.
In all the above examples, the entries in the individual columns are
each a single line. Some tables contain certain columns with several lines
of text that are somewhat separated from the rest of the row:
Model Description Price
FBD 360 Desktop: XP3600+ Processor, 512 MB DDR-RAM,
80 GB hard disk, 16x DVD drive, 32x CDRW drive,
64 MB TV output, Windows XP, 15” monitor
FBD 480 Desktop DeLuxe: same as FBD 360 but with
XP4800+ Processor, 48x CDRW drive, 17” monitor
FBT 240 Laptop: XP2400+, 512 MB RAM, 40 GB hard disk,
56 kb modem, 32x speed DVD/CD-RW drive, 2x USB,
15” display, Windows XP, Infrared interface
999.00
1399.00
1299.00
The above table is made up of three columns, the first left justified,
the third right justified. The middle column contains several lines of text
with a line width of 7.5 cm. This is generated with the column formatting
symbol p{width}. The whole column formatting argument in this example
is {lp{7.5cm}r}.
\begin{tabular}{lp{7.5cm}r}
\bfseries Model & Description & \bfseries Price \\[1ex]
FBD 360 &\small{\bfseries Desktop}: XP3600+ Processor,
512˜MB DDR-RAM, 80˜GB hard disk, 16x DVD drive,
32x CDRW drive, 64˜MB TV˜output,
Windows˜XP, 15’’ monitor & 999.00\\
. . . . . . . . . . . .
15’’ display, Windows˜XP, Infrared interface& 1299.00
\end{tabular}
The text for the middle column is simply typed in, being broken up
into lines of width 8.0 cm automatically. The column is separated from
the others with the & symbol in the usual way.
Warning: The line termination command \\ is ambiguous within a p
column, for it can either start a whole new row, or if \raggedright or
\centering have been given, it ends a line of text within that column
entry. In this case, if this is the last column in the row, the only way to