How to remove extra vertical space between vertically merged cells?

Question

Following this thread, I have used the array package and \setlength\extrarowheight{3pt} to slightly heighten the rows in the table below in order to make room for the diacritical marks.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array}
\begin{document}
\setlength\extrarowheight{3pt}
\begin{table}[!h]
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|}
\hline
\"Ostersund & Married\\
\cline{1-1}
\'Orlaith & Couple\\
\hline
Twin & \AA m\aa l\\
\cline{2-2}
Peaks & O\'O\"O\H{O}\\
\hline
\'Acs & Anders\\
\cline{1-1}
\H{O}riszentp\'eter & Jonas\\
\cline{1-1}
\'Ujsz\'asz & \AA ngstr\"om\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}

This, however, resulted in the somewhat inconvenient side effects, that in vertically merged cells subsequent rows are now (1) too far away from each other and (2) the contents are not vertically centered (as the rows are now closer to the (perhaps hidden) cell-separator immediately below them).

How can I specify the text height between the lines of the vertically merged cells and have their contents vertically (and horizontally) centered?

---

Related: How to vertically-center the text of the cells?

Answer 1

You can use the makecellpackage, and its multirowcell command, which allow for multiline cells. I added cellspace, which define minimal vertical padding at the top and bottom of cells in column with specifier prefixed with the letter. And finally, using utf8 encoding for your code and a T1` encoded font, you can directly type accented letters.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage{cellspace}
\setlength\cellspacetoplimit{3pt}
\setlength\cellspacebottomlimit{3pt}
\usepackage{makecell}
\usepackage{multirow, array}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}[!h]
  \begin{tabular}{|Sc|Sc|}
    \hline
    Östersund & Married \\
    \cline{1-1}
    Órlaith & Couple \\
    \hline
    \multirowcell{2}[-1.2pt]{Twin \\Peaks} &Åmål \\
    \cline{2-2}
    & OÓÖŐ \\
    \hline
    Ács & \multirowcell{3}[-3pt]{Anders \\ Jonas\\ Ångström} \\
    \cline{1-1}
    Őriszentpéter & \\
    \cline{1-1}
    Újszász & \\
    \hline
  \end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{document}