Table Border Options

\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
Column 1 & Column 2 & column3 \\
\hline
second row & & \\
\hline
\end{tabular}


Please help me with table border options. Using | I can draw thin solid vertical lines and \hline draws thin solid horizontal lines. I would like to achieve thick outer border, thin dotted lines of various size and color in the table. In short I would like to achieve similar functionality of attached screenshot of MS word table options in LaTeX. Also the reason for asking this is to put all table borders related answers at one place

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I wouldn´t like the look of dashed lines, even in illustrations, if you can use gray lines instead. – Benjamin McKay Feb 17 '15 at 16:46

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array,booktabs,arydshln,xcolor}
\newcommand\VRule[1][\arrayrulewidth]{\vrule width #1}

\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{!{\VRule[2pt]}c!{\VRule}c!{\color{red}\VRule[3pt]}c!{\VRule}}
Column 1 & Column 2 & column3 \\\specialrule{3pt}{0pt}{0pt}
second row & & \\\hdashline
third row  & & \\\specialrule{4pt}{0pt}{0pt}
\end{tabular}

\end{document}


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I want to add a one bold horizontal line only between the two row... this method didn't work. – Misaki Oct 9 '13 at 10:18

There is the hhline package and the arydshln package. You can get colour in the table with the xcolor package.

You might have your reasons to typeset your tables with many different line styles... I'd usually recommend to avoid vertical lines at all and to draw horizontal lines with commands provided by the booktabs package.

In case you are writing something related to science, more or less all textbooks seem to roughly follow similar guidelines. Rarely you will find a vertical line.

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Here are a few table layouts, with my favourite one last.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{p{6cm}p{6cm}}
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
\hline
Column 1 & Column 2 & Column 3 \\
\hline
second row & & \\
\hline
third row & & \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
&
\begin{tabular}{ccc}
Column 1 & Column 2 & Column 3 \\
\hline
second row & & \\
\hline
third row & & \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\\[5em]
\begin{tabular}{|ccc|}
\hline
Column 1 & Column 2 & Column 3 \\
\hline
second row & & \\
third row & & \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
&
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
\hline
Column 1 & Column 2 & Column 3 \\
\hline
second row & & \\
third row & & \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\\[5em]
\begin{tabular}{ccc}
Column 1 & Column 2 & Column 3 \\
second row & & \\
third row & &
\end{tabular}
&
\begin{tabular}{lll}
\toprule
Column 1 & Column 2 & Column 3 \\
\midrule
second row & & \\
third row & & \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\\[5em]
% Colour for the rulings in tables:
\makeatletter
\def\rulecolor#1#{\CT@arc{#1}}
\def\CT@arc#1#2{%
\ifdim\baselineskip=\z@\noalign\fi
{\gdef\CT@arc@{\color#1{#2}}}}
\let\CT@arc@\relax
\rulecolor{gray!50}
\makeatother
\begin{tabular}{@{}lll@{}}
\toprule
Column 1 & Column 2 & Column 3 \\
\midrule
second row & & \\
third row & & \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

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You can use all the flexibility permitted by LaTeX:

\usepackage{arydshln}
...

\begin{table}[h]
\begin{tabular}{lll}
\multicolumn{1}{c}{\textbf{Title 1}} &  & \multicolumn{1}{c}{\textbf{Title 2}} \\
\cline{1-1} \cline{3-3}
\multicolumn{1}{|l|}{Cell 1} & & \multicolumn{1}{|l|}{Cell 2} \\
\cdashline{3-3}
\multicolumn{1}{|l|}{Cell 3} & & \multicolumn{1}{|l|}{Cell 4} \\
\cline{3-3}
\multicolumn{1}{|l|}{Cell 5} & & \\
\cline{1-1}
\end{tabular}
\end{table}


The result is:

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Welcome to TeX.SX! You can have a look at our starter guide to familiarize yourself further with our format. – Paul Gessler Feb 17 '15 at 12:11