Curvy arrows between two tables (with tikz?)

Question

I try to connect two arbitrary tables with arrows. The code example below should demonstrate how: say we want to connect the "1" in A with the "5" in B, the "2" in A with the "7" in B and so on. My wish would be to have "curvy" arrows (as far as i know the tikz packages provides them) and not "straight" arrows.

Is it even possible to combine "ordinary" tabular elements with tikz nodes oder drawings? If yes, how? If not, is there a pure tikz way to solve that problem? Thanks for any advices or hints!

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper,twoside]{scrartcl}
\begin{document} 
\begin{center}

  \begin{tabular}{c c c c c c}
   $A$ & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 
  \end{tabular}

  \vspace{15mm}

  \begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c }
   $B$ & \fbox{5} & 6 & \fbox{7} & 8 & \fbox{9} & 10 & \fbox{11} & 12 &  
  \end{tabular}

\end{center}
\end{document}

Answer 1

Do you mean something like this:

Note:

• This does require two runs. First one to determine the locations, and the second to do the drawing.

• The \tikzmark is from Adding a large brace next to a body of text.

Code:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc}

\newcommand{\tikzmark}[1]{\tikz[overlay,remember picture] \node (#1) {};}

\newcommand*{\DrawArrow}[3][]{%
    % #1 = draw options
    % #2 = left point
    % #3 = right point
    \begin{tikzpicture}[overlay,remember picture]
        \draw [very thick, -stealth, #1] ($(#2)+(0.25em,-0.3ex)$) to ($(#3)+(0.25em,2.5ex)$);
    \end{tikzpicture}%
}%

\begin{document} 
\begin{center}

  \begin{tabular}{c c c c c c}
   $A$ & \tikzmark{topA}1 & \tikzmark{topB}2 & \tikzmark{topC}3 & \tikzmark{topD}4 & 
  \end{tabular}

  \vspace{15mm}

  \begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c }
   $B$ & \fbox{\tikzmark{bottomA}5} & 6 & \fbox{\tikzmark{bottomB}7} & 8 & \fbox{\tikzmark{bottomC}9} & 10 & \fbox{\tikzmark{bottomD}11} & 12 &  
  \end{tabular}
\DrawArrow[red,   out=-90, in=90]{topA}{bottomA}
\DrawArrow[olive, out=-90, in=90]{topB}{bottomB}
\DrawArrow[blue,  out=-90, in=90]{topC}{bottomC}
\DrawArrow[brown, out=-90, in=90]{topD}{bottomD}
\end{center}
\end{document}

Answer 2

With PSTricks.

\documentclass[preview,border=12pt,12pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{pst-node}
\psset
{
    mnode=r,
    rowsep=2cm,
    colsep=0.5cm,
}

\def\c{[mnode=circle] }


\begin{document}
\offinterlineskip
\begin{psmatrix}
    & & A & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4\\
    B & \c 5 & 6 & \c 7 & 8 & \c 9 & 10 & \c 11 & 12
    \foreach \i/\j in {4/2,5/4,6/6,7/8}
        {\nccurve[angleA=-90,angleB=90,nodesep=3pt]{->}{1,\i}{2,\j}}
\end{psmatrix}
\end{document}

Warning:

• mnode for \psframebox is not available out of the box. We can circumvent it by wrapping each item with \psframebox manually, but it will take more keystrokes!
• mnode=circle will use \pscirclebox to wrap the item. Unfortunately, \pscirclebox has no option to adjust its radius. It results in the size of each circle will vary depending on the size of the contained item. Only framesep is available to adjust the border. Sad!

Answer 3

Here's a very short solution using the tikz-cd package:

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz-cd}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzcd}[out=-90, in=90, column sep=small, row sep=15mm]
    & & A & 1 \arrow{dll} & 2 \arrow{dl} & 3 \arrow{d} & 4 \arrow{dr} \\
    B & \fbox{5} & 6 & \fbox{7} & 8 & \fbox{9} & 10 & \fbox{11} & 12
\end{tikzcd}
\end{document}

The result is this:

Note that the table entries created by this method will automatically be in math mode. Any entries for which this behavior is undesired should have their text enclosed in a \text{} command.