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From: eijkhout@s41.csrd.uiuc.edu (Victor Eijkhout)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: Building large diagram (help me!)
Message-ID: <1990Nov20.195755.9959@csrd.uiuc.edu>
Date: 20 Nov 90 19:57:55 GMT
References: <1990Nov19.190457.13953@cpsc.ucalgary.ca>
Sender: news@csrd.uiuc.edu (news)
Organization: UIUC Center for Supercomputing Research and Development
Lines: 53

gaston@cs-sun-ab.cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Gaston Groisman) writes:

>  \mbox{Semiotic} 
>  \left\{
>  \begin{array}{l}
>    \mbox{Language} \\
>    \mbox{(langage)} \\
>    \mbox{ } \\
>    \mbox{ Other systems}
>  \end{array}
>  \right.
>  \\
>  \mbox{systems}   \\

>What I get is

>             /           / Language
>            |           |  (langage)
>            | Semiotic <
>            |           |  Other systems
>            |            \
>           <  systems
>            |
>            |

>But what I *want* is

>                         / Language
>             /          |  (langage)
>            | Semiotic <
>            | systems   |  Other systems
>            |            \
>           <  
>          
>There are two main differences:

>First I want "Semitic systems" to be one "box" but \mbox{} will not
>accept \\ to break it into two lines.

Try \parbox[t]{ specify width here }{Semiotic\par systems}.

>Second I want the first { to go only as high as "Semiotic".  The
>diagram will grow much larger in the near future and the way things
>are the left { will be as tall as the whole diagram....

Not so easy with legal LaTeX.
{\setbox0=\hbox{$\vcenter{  ... the language systems table ... }$}
 \ht0=0pt \box0}
In fact this is dirty. And it will hide the height fo the
inner table not only from the brace, but from anything else
outside, so you may bump into material higher up.

Victor.