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From: Ray.Nickson@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Ray Nickson)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: TABLES-- Alligning the decimal points.
Message-ID: <NICKSON.91Jan30142422@circa.comp.vuw.ac.nz>
Date: 30 Jan 91 19:24:22 GMT
References: <1991Jan25.114530.2289@vax5.cit.cornell.edu>
	<1991Jan26.221417.24115@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
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In-Reply-To: golding@Neon.Stanford.EDU's message of 26 Jan 91 22:14:17 GMT

In article <1991Jan26.221417.24115@Neon.Stanford.EDU> golding@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Andy Golding) writes:
   nqdy@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
   >       I am using LaTeX for making tables. I would like to allign
   >the numbers in a column so that the decimal points are alligned
   >rather than the number being left/right/center alligned.

   This is not the most elegant solution in the world,
   but one thing to do is use a `tabular' environment ...

(I've run this through LaTeX, but don't have a printer or previewer
handy; apologies and free flames if it's wrong).

I think this is slightly nicer:

\def\dotalign{\catcode`\.=4\begin{tabular}{r@{.}l}}
\def\enddotalign{\end{tabular}\catcode`\.=12}

This allows me to write:

\begin{dotalign}
5.8 \\
111.222 \\
.5 \\
\end{dotalign}

and I think should do align the dots properly.  In case you can't
tell, it works by temporarily telling TeX that . is an alignment
character like &.

I often change catcodes temporarily to make my input look nicer; I've
been known to make newline active and define it to do what \\ does, so
I don't have \\s cluttering up my input.