Overlaying tables

Question

I have two tables as follows:

Table 1:

Row/Column | C1 | C2 | C3
ROW 1      | v  | v  | v
ROW 2      | v  | v  | v
ROW 3      | v  | v  | v
ROW 4      | v  | v  | v
ROW 5      | v  | v  | v
...
ROW n    | v | v | v

Table 2:

Row/Column | C1 
Row1       | v
Row2       | v
Row3       | v

I want to have table 1 as a background (possibly transparent) and Table 2 on top of 1 as if it summarize the content of table 1 from ROW 1 up to ROW 4.

What packages do you recommend for doing this?

Answer 1

A simple way to do this would be to just fade out the text that want to be underneath. By using the array package package I have defined two new column types, L and C for left and centered columns which have the text displayed with color gray!25. For the entries that you want on top, I used \multicolumn so that the color would not be applied.

Further Enhancements:

• The collcell package could be used to keep track of the current row and column and only apply the gray color if the current entry was outside of the range of the entries that are to be on top.

  This would allow the table to be entered as a normal table, and the specification of which entries on top would be separated form the content.

Code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{booktabs}

\newcolumntype{C}{>{\color{gray!25}}c<{}}
\newcolumntype{L}{>{\color{gray!25}}l<{}}

\newcommand*{\mc}[1]{\multicolumn{1}{c}{#1}}%
\newcommand*{\ml}[1]{\multicolumn{1}{l}{#1}}%

\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{L  C  C  C} 
\ml{Row/Column} & \mc{C1} & C2 & C3 \\ \toprule
\ml{ROW 1}      & \mc{v}  & v  & v  \\ 
\ml{ROW 2}      & \mc{v}  & v  & v  \\ 
\ml{ROW 3}      & \mc{v}  & v  & v  \\  %\cmidrule{1-4}
    ROW 4       &     v   & v  & v  \\ 
    ROW 5       &     v   & v  & v  \\ 
    ROW n       &     v   & v  & v  \\  %\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{document}