Tabulators like in OpenOffice/LibreOffice

Question

Is there any way to achieve the same result in LaTeX as done with tabulators in other Word Processors?

• The difference to tables is that the text is not limited to cells but can flow across there boarders.
• and I can define the tabulators per paragraph

It should also work with other languages (from right to left and left to right) like in this question: Hebrew vs. German/English translation side-by-side

Answer 1

You can use the tabbing environment; below there are some examples (the example is in Spanish, but that's not so relevant) of the use of this environment and a brief description of its main commands:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

\begin{tabbing}
Programa\quad \= : \= \TeX \\
Autor \> : \> Donald Knuth \\
Manuales \> : \\
\qquad\= The Advanced \TeX\ Book\quad\= David Salomon\quad\=
Springer-Verlag\kill \\
\>\textsf{T\a'itulo} \>\textsf{Autor} \>\textsf{Editorial}\\
\>The \TeX Book \>Donald Knuth \>Addison-Wesley\\
\>The Advanced \TeX\ Book \>David Salomon \>Springer-Verlag
\end{tabbing}

\begin{tabbing}
Fila 1 Columna 1\hspace{2cm}\= Fila 1 Columna 2 \\
\> Fila 2 Columna 2\hspace{1.8cm}\= Fila 2 Columna 3 \+\+ \\
Fila 3 Columna 3 \- \\
Fila 4 Columna 2 \> Fila 4 Columna 3 \\
\< Fila 5 Columna 1 \> Fila 5 Columna 2 \> Fila 5 Columna 3 \\
Fila 6 Columna 2 \> Fila 6 Columna 3 \- \\
Fila 7 Columna 1 \> Fila 7 Columna 2 \> Fila 7 Columna 3 \\
Fila 8 Columna 1 \' Derecha \\
Fila 9 Columna 1 \> y \' Fila 9 Columna 2 \\
\pushtabs
\quad\= Fila 10 Columna nueva 1\hspace{2.5cm}\= Fila 10
Columna nueva 2 \\
\> Fila 11 Columna nueva 2
\> Fila 11 Columna nueva 2 \\
\poptabs
Fila 12 Columna antig\"ua 1 \> Fila 12 Columna antig\"ua 2
\end{tabbing}

\end{document}

And now a brief description of the commands:

• \= set tab.

• \> advance to next tab stop.

• \< used at the beginning of a line, it anhilates the effect of a \+ for that particular line.

• \+ Used at the end of a line, it causes all following lines to begin at the first tab stop; using \+\+ at the end of a line, following lines will begin at the second tab stop, etc.

• \- Used at the end of a line, it anhilates the effect of a \+.

• \' causes the following text to be placed at the next tab stop; the preceding text will be written just before, with a separation controlled by the length \tabbingsep.

• \\ end of line; newline.

• \kill ignore preceding text; use only for spacing.

• \pushtabs removes the current tabbing scheme (saving it before) allowing for a new tabbing scheme.

• \poptabs it reactivates a previously saved tabbing scheme.

Inside the tabbing environment, the commands \=, and \' are redefined; in this environment it is possible to get the accents by using \a=, and \a', respectively.

I don't know if this will work with right-to-left languages.

Answer 2

This is just a modification of the user Gonzalo Medino's answer. To get bidi tabbing, just use bidi package and instead running pdflatex or latex, run xelatex on your document:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{bidi}
\begin{document}
\setRTL % to typeset tabbing in RTL mode
\begin{tabbing}
Programa\quad \= : \= \TeX \\
Autor \> : \> Donald Knuth \\
Manuales \> : \\
\qquad\= The Advanced \TeX\ Book\quad\= David Salomon\quad\=
Springer-Verlag\kill \\
\>\textsf{T\a'itulo} \>\textsf{Autor} \>\textsf{Editorial}\\
\>The \TeX Book \>Donald Knuth \>Addison-Wesley\\
\>The Advanced \TeX\ Book \>David Salomon \>Springer-Verlag
\end{tabbing}

\begin{tabbing}
Fila 1 Columna 1\hspace{2cm}\= Fila 1 Columna 2 \\
\> Fila 2 Columna 2\hspace{1.8cm}\= Fila 2 Columna 3 \+\+ \\
Fila 3 Columna 3 \- \\
Fila 4 Columna 2 \> Fila 4 Columna 3 \\
\< Fila 5 Columna 1 \> Fila 5 Columna 2 \> Fila 5 Columna 3 \\
Fila 6 Columna 2 \> Fila 6 Columna 3 \- \\
Fila 7 Columna 1 \> Fila 7 Columna 2 \> Fila 7 Columna 3 \\
Fila 8 Columna 1 \' Derecha \\
Fila 9 Columna 1 \> y \' Fila 9 Columna 2 \\
\pushtabs
\quad\= Fila 10 Columna nueva 1\hspace{2.5cm}\= Fila 10
Columna nueva 2 \\
\> Fila 11 Columna nueva 2
\> Fila 11 Columna nueva 2 \\
\poptabs
Fila 12 Columna antig\"ua 1 \> Fila 12 Columna antig\"ua 2
\end{tabbing}

\end{document}

As you can see, the output is perfect for RTL:

Even if you want to use tabu package, that package also work perfectly with bidi package. Try:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{tabu}
\usepackage{bidi}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}
\setRTL % to typeset tabu environment in RTL mode
\taburulecolor |gray!50|{red}\arrayrulewidth=1pt
{
   \taburulecolor|yellow|{blue}\tabulinesep=1mm
      \begin{tabu}{|X|X|} \hline
      Here the lines & are drawn in blue        \\ \taburulecolor{green} \hline
      But starting from here & they are green coloured !                \\ \hline
      And now a nested \textsf{tabu} & \begin{tabu}{|X|} \firsthline\hline
                                guess what colour \\ \hline
                                is used for rules ?\\ \lasthline\hline
                              \end{tabu} \\ \hline
      \end{tabu}
}
\end{document}

and here is the perfect bidi tabu: