[texhax] Alignments and Knuth's uncertainty principle ...

[Philip TAYLOR]

Uwe Lück wrote:

 > We had this earlier, then concerning LaTeX tabular environments.
 > With usual simple preambles, cells are considered \hboxes,
 > so a maximum width would mean something may stick out.

Ah yes, but in the case I was considering, I knew the
maximum width of a single-cell entry for the column,
but wanted its adjacent (preceding) column to expand
when the two were merged through the medium of a \span,
in order to accommodate the widest entry for the spanned
pair of columns.  As I am writing, I am beginning to
wonder if one possible solution would be to eschew \spans,
and instead to (somehow) cause the earlier column to \rlap
by the maximum width of the later column into the latter ...

 > If you want to break lines within cells, you need preambles like
 > \vbox\bgroup\hsize<max-width>#\egroup.

Of course.

 > [snip]

** Phil.