# Border strip tableau

I would like to draw border strip tableaux in Latex. Such a tableau is a tiling of a partition shape (or skew-partition shaped) diagram with labeled border strips such that in each row and column, the labels are increasing. For a precise definition, see page 351 in

http://www-math.mit.edu/~rstan/pubs/pubfiles/123.pdf

In the picture, all the border strips are of the same length. This special case is enough for my purposes but does not hold in general.

The picture is copied from Figure 2.4 in http://www.ams.org/journals/tran/2000-352-12/S0002-9947-00-02666-0/S0002-9947-00-02666-0.pdf

• could you show what you have tried so far? – Raaja Feb 19 at 8:00

You mean like this (this includes @CarLaTeX's suggestion to use arraystretch):

\documentclass[border=3.14mm]{standalone}
\usepackage{array}
\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.4}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{|lllllllll}
\hline
\multicolumn{3}{|c|}{1}                                                  & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{}  & 5                     & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{}   & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{}   & 13                    & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{} \\ \cline{1-3} \cline{6-6} \cline{9-9}
2                      & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{}  &                        & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{4} & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{} &                         & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{8}  & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{} &                       \\ \cline{2-8}
\multicolumn{1}{|l|}{} & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{}  & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{}  & 9                      & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{} & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{}   & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{}   &                       &                       \\ \cline{1-1} \cline{5-5}
& \multicolumn{1}{l|}{3} & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{7} & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{}  &                       & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{10} & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{12} &                       &                       \\ \cline{1-2} \cline{4-6}
6                      & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{}  & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{}  &                        & 11                    & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{}   & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{}   &                       &                       \\ \cline{2-7}
\multicolumn{1}{|l|}{} &                        & 14                     & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{}  &                       &                         &                         &                       &                       \\ \cline{1-4}
\end{tabular}
\end{document}


which will give you:

Since this can be easily achieved by tabular environment, I have directly utilized it.

PS: In case, if you have something else in mind, please consider giving an MWE.

Disclaimer: I specifically chose not to use tikz here. Instead, I used tabular -- though it does not match the tags of the question -- only because it is elegant for this class of typesetting ;).

• That is very nice and it is what I needed, thanks! Do you know if there is an easy way to adjust it so that all boxes are more squareish? Now they look a bit flat. After some testing, I added \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.35} before the tabular envoirnment which looks alright but for example the top right square looks a bit wierd. – Joakim Uhlin Feb 19 at 8:48
• @Jaokim Uhlin There are countless number of ways ;) of which one you already did, you can also play with cell spacing etc., Please refer to table related manuals ;) that is the first place to start with. And you are welcome! – Raaja Feb 19 at 8:50
• @CarLaTeX thank you ;) I will update it after I reach back ;) – Raaja Feb 19 at 21:10

A variation on the theme of Raaja's answer, who the credit should go. The advantage here is a more readable syntax, where each cell is specified (the optional argument is the contents, if not empty).

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array,xparse}

\NewExpandableDocumentCommand{\?}{O{}m}{%
\multicolumn{1}{#2}{\makebox[0.6em]{#1}}%
}

\begin{document}

$\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.4} \begin{tabular}{*{9}{c}} \hline \?{|c} & \?[1]{c} & \?{c|} & \?{c|} & \?[5]{c} & \?{c|} & \?{c|} & \?[13]{c} & \?{c|} \\ \cline{1-3} \cline{6-6} \cline{9-9} \?[2]{|c} & \?{c|} & \?{c} & \?[4]{c|} & \?{c|} & \?{c} & \?[8]{c|} & \?{c|} \\ \cline{2-8} \?{|c|} & \?{c|} & \?{c|} & \?[9]{c} & \?{c|} & \?{c|} & \?{c|} \\ \cline{1-1} \cline{5-5} \?{|c} & \?[3]{c|} & \?[7]{c|} & \?{c|} & \?{c} & \?[10]{c|} & \?[12]{c|} \\ \cline{1-2} \cline{4-6} \?[6]{|c} & \?{c|} & \?{c|} & \?{c} & \?[11]{c} & \?{c|} & \?{c|} \\ \cline{2-7} \?{|c|} & \?{c} & \?[14]{c} & \?{c|} \\ \cline{1-4} \end{tabular}$

\end{document}