Newline in a table cell which is centered

Question

This question may look like a duplicate but, none of the answers given to the possible duplicates contain the answer to this specific case.

I have a tabular, say \begin{tabular}{ccc}. While adding a new line to a cell, I want both resulting lines to be horizontally centered. Is there an elegant solution to this? If not is there a solution to this?

Answer 1

How about using \shortstack inside a cell?

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document} 
\begin{tabular}{ccc}
    one & two & three \\
    one & two & \shortstack{a \\ bb \\ c}\\
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

Answer 2

This is an old thread, but there is a new solution.

\usepackage{makecell}
%% tablestart
...
\makecell{line 1 \\ line2}
%% tableend

Answer 3

If you want the cells to be centered horizontally as well as vertically I suggest the following solution:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\newcommand{\bigcell}[2]{\begin{tabular}{@{}#1@{}}#2\end{tabular}}

\begin{document} 

\begin{tabular}{ccc}
\toprule
a & \bigcell{c}{this schould be a longer line \\ this is a shorter one} & c \\ 
\midrule
 0,9892 & 0,9892 & 0,9892  \\
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

Answer 4

Another way I discovered is to use matrix. Not as simple as Christian's answer but provides vertical alignment along columns.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\begin{document} 
\begin{tabular}{ccc}
    one & two & three \\
    one & two & $\begin{matrix} \text{a} \\ \text{bb} \\ text{c} \end{matrix}$ \\
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

Answer 5

You can also use \parbox like this:

\parbox[c][][c]{width}{\centering very long \\ line}

This has an advantage over \shortstack when also using \rowcolors to color table rows with alternating colors. \parbox results in a cell that has a single consistent color, and the next table row will have the alternative color. However, using \shortstack leads to two consecutive rows with the same color.