[XeTeX] Tabular spanning columns

[Axel Kielhorn]

Hello Karljürgen!

I take this back to the list since it may be interesting for the  
innocent bystanders:-)

Thank you for providing a minimal example and the required fonts.
With this I was able to test my suggestions directly instead of  
mailing them and waiting for a reply.
The command below is already the third iteration:-)

You write:

> Reading in the Latex companion about boxes and rules I accidentally  
> came upon the commane \nointerlineskip. So
>
> I did this:
>
> \nointerlineskip before each \framebox
>
> \setlength{\itemsep}{-\fboxrule}% otherwise the boxes line up  
> vertically and i get twice the thickness.
>

I guess now is a good time to hide the details in a new command:

\newcommand{\cuitem}[2]{%
\item[\begin{turn}{90}{#1}\end{turn}]% label turned 90 degrees
\nointerlineskip%                    really no space
\fbox{%                                     frame around the box
\parbox{2.4in}{%                      the box containing the cuneiform  
(with line breaks)
\rule[-5pt]{0pt}{23pt}%            compensate for decenders and small  
glyphs
\raggedright\LARGE{#2}}}% the actual text
}

And use
	\cuitem{29}{������ ������}

for the tablet.

The \rule is needed to compensate for the decender in ��. You can set  
the width to 1pt to see the rule.

Axel