# Tabular formula sheet style without using tables

I would like to archieve something similar in style to the cambridge book of physics formulas as seen in the screenshot at the end of this question. There are the equation names on the left, the equation with a number at the center and an explanation for some of the symbols. The footnotes are using letters instead of numbers and are at the bottom of the section instead of the bottom of the page.

I imagine the tabular environment not to be the right way to do this, because I would have to use a lot of \multirow. Also I can't use inside a table, so the equation numbers don't work.

• Welcome to TeX.SE :) // Some hints: Have a look at the Related-column to the right, like tex.stackexchange.com/questions/166115/… . Check out ctan.org/topic/table . Use the Tags-search from this web-site. Dec 29, 2021 at 10:40
• You can avoid easily multirows. One way can be using the \makecell package. Dec 29, 2021 at 10:42
• Welcome to TeX SX! You might try using \Centerstack (from the stackengine package) in the place of \multirow. Dec 29, 2021 at 10:44

## 2 Answers

The following should get you started:

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage{threeparttable}
\renewcommand\tabularxcolumn[1]{m{#1}}

\begin{document}
\chapter{chapter}
\section{section}
\begin{threeparttable}
\begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{|>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}m{3cm}|X|@{}>{\footnotesize}l@{}|}
\multicolumn{3}{@{}l}{\large\bfseries some text above the table\tnote{a}}\\
\hline
Newtonian force & {$$F =$$} &  \begin{tabular}{ll} a & some text\\ b & some text \\c & come text\end{tabular}\\
\cline{1-2}
Newtonian force & {$$F =$$} & \begin{tabular}{ll} d & some text\end{tabular}\\
\cline{1-2}
longer name that gets split into multiple lines & {$$F =$$} & \begin{tabular}{ll} e & some text\\ f & some text \end{tabular}\\
\hline
\end{tabularx}
\begin{tablenotes}[flushleft]\scriptsize
\item[a] some explanatory text below the table
\end{tablenotes}
\end{threeparttable}
\end{document}


Here is a version in which I created a new environment with two arguments. The first one is the table title, the second one the table note and the body of the table contains the actual formulae, their names and the variable descriptions:

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage{threeparttable}
\renewcommand\tabularxcolumn[1]{m{#1}}

\NewDocumentEnvironment{myformulagroup}{m m}
{\threeparttable%
\tabularx{\linewidth}{|>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}m{3cm}|X|@{}>{\footnotesize}l@{}|}%
\multicolumn{3}{@{}l}{\large\bfseries #1 \tnote{a}}\\%
\hline%
}%
{\endtabularx%
\begin{tablenotes}[flushleft]\scriptsize%
\item[a] #2%
\end{tablenotes}%
\endthreeparttable%
}

\begin{document}
\chapter{chapter}
\section{section}

\begin{myformulagroup}{title}{table note}
Newtonian force & {$$F =$$} &  \begin{tabular}{ll} a & some text\\ b & some text \\c & come text\end{tabular}\\
\cline{1-2}
Newtonian force & {$$F =$$} & \begin{tabular}{ll} d & some text\end{tabular}\\
\cline{1-2}
longer name that gets split into multiple lines & {$$F =$$} & \begin{tabular}{ll} e & some text\\ f & some text \end{tabular}\\
\hline
\end{myformulagroup}
\end{document}

• Thank you, I have tried to wrap this up in a \newenvironment{formula_group} to make it more usable, but I did not succeed. Could you do this? Dec 29, 2021 at 11:52
• @Caspar: I just updated my answer to also include a variant of the code in which most of the threeparttable and tabularx-related stuff is hidden sinside a new environment. Dec 29, 2021 at 12:49

Using the makecell package.

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage{makecell}
\usepackage{threeparttable}

% math-mode column
\newcolumntype{E}{>{$}c<{$}}
%\newcolumntype{E}{>{$\displaystyle}c<{$}} %<-- Use this if you want equations in display style

% equation no column (source: https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/521583/219947)
\newcolumntype{N}{>{\refstepcounter{equation}(\theequation)}r}

\begin{document}
\chapter{Ch 1}
\section{Sec 1}
\begin{threeparttable}
Table Caption\tnote{a}
\begin{tabular}{|lEN|El|}
\hline
Newton & F=ma & &
\makecell[l]{F\\m\\a}& \makecell[l]{force\\mass\\acceleration} \\
\cline{1-3}
Momentum & p=mv & &
\makecell[l]{p\\v}& \makecell[l]{momentum\\velocity} \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\begin{tablenotes}
\item[a] Table note
\end{tablenotes}
\end{threeparttable}
\end{document}