Is there any way to vertically align each cell in a row differently?

Question

So, I've been searching around and I came across a few examples that will allow you to valign two cells in a certain way, but I'm trying to align three, so that the first it at the top, the middle is in the middle, and the third is at the bottom. Here is what I've been messing with, but I'm obviously not understanding something important. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
  \begin{tabular}{cp{2.8in}c}
    \multicolumn{1}{b{0.2in}}{\Huge{``}}    &
    \multicolumn{1}{m{2.8in}}{\lipsum[1]} &
    \Huge{"}   \\
  \end{tabular}
\end{document}

Answer 1

That's not easily possible. But there's a way around it: Insert the quotes at the start and end manually, with some overlap into the adjacent columns.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{ c p{2.8in} c}
  \hphantom{\Huge ``} & % Just for appropriate horizontal space
  \raisebox{-.5\normalbaselineskip}[0pt][0pt]{\makebox[0pt][r]{\Huge ``\hspace{2\tabcolsep}}}%
  \lipsum*[1]%
  \hfill\raisebox{-\normalbaselineskip}[0pt][0pt]{\makebox[0pt][l]{\hspace{2\tabcolsep}\Huge ''}} &
  \hphantom{\Huge ''}% Just for appropriate horizontal space
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

You don't need a tabular structure for this, since the placement of the quotes rely on the content, so could also be set in a \parbox, say.

Answer 2

With {NiceTabular} of nicematrix.

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{nicematrix}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}

\begin{NiceTabular}{cp{2.8in}c}
  \Block[T]{}{\Huge ``}    &
  \multicolumn{1}{m{2.8in}}{\lipsum[1]} &
  \Block[B]{}{\raisebox{-\normalbaselineskip}[0pt][0pt]{\Huge "}}  
\end{NiceTabular}

\end{document}

Answer 3

tblr environment from tabularray package has a feature-rich more-intuitive key=value(s) interface.

Example:

MWE

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{xcolor}

\usepackage{tabularray}
\begin{document}
  \begin{tblr}{
%  vlines,hlines,
  colspec={Q[h,r]X[j,m,3.5in,bg={blue!5}]Q[f,l]},
  column{1}={fg={red},rightsep={0pt}},
  column{3}={fg={red},leftsep={0pt}},
    }
    {\Huge{``}}  &
    \lipsum[1]  &
    \Huge{"}    \\
  \end{tblr}
\end{document}

---

Note - slight edit

\Huge is a switch and does not take parameters.

It can be set in the column spec.

  \begin{tblr}{
%  vlines,hlines,
  colspec={Q[h,r]X[j,3.5in,bg={blue!5}]Q[f,l]},
  column{1}={font={\Huge},fg={red},rightsep={0pt}},
  column{3}={font={\Huge},fg={red},leftsep={0pt}},
    }
    ``  &
    \lipsum[1]  &
    "    \\
  \end{tblr}