Avoiding thick rules in tabularx

Question

This is my table:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\begin{document}


\noindent
\begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{@{}|p{3.5cm}|X|X|}
some text & \multicolumn{2}{|c|}{some text} \\
\end{tabularx}

\end{document}

which renders as

Is there a way to get rid of the thicker rule in the middle without removing one of the pipe symbols | in the table preamble or in the multicolumn command?

Answer 1

I will give an alternative solution with tblr environment of tabularray package. Firstly, it make a correct multicolumn cell which spans two X columns. Secondly, by using \SetCell command we don't need to worry about cell borders.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tabularray}
\begin{document}

\noindent
\begin{tblr}{@{}|t{3.5cm}|X|X|}
some text & \SetCell[c=2]{c} some text & \\
\end{tblr}

\end{document}

Answer 2

Here is an alternative with {NiceTabular} of nicematrix. In that environment, the command \Block merges cells both vertically and horizontally and the rules (for instance specified by | in the preamble) are not drawn in the blocks.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{nicematrix}
\begin{document}

\noindent
\begin{NiceTabular}{|p{3.5cm}|X|X|}
some text & \Block{1-2}{some text} & \\
\end{NiceTabular}

\end{document}

You need several compilations (because nicematrix uses PGF/Tikz nodes under the hood).