Simple way to get tabular with proportional column width and both vertical and horizontal centering of cell content?

Question

I'm searching how to have simultaneously :

• a proportional array definition (say, "this column represent 20% of the array width, the next is 30%" and so on) ;
• content centered both vertically and horizontally.

I've searched through StackExchange and ended with this code :

\documentclass[12pt, a4paper]{book}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{mathpazo}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage{geometry}
\usepackage[french]{babel}
\usepackage{tikz}
\geometry{top=1.5cm, bottom=1.5cm, left=1cm, right=1cm,
          headheight=1cm, headsep=0.5cm,
          footskip=1cm}
\begin{document}
Compléter le tableau suivant:
\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{3}
\renewcommand{\tabularxcolumn}[1]{m{#1}}
\newcolumntype{C}[1]{>{\hsize=#1\hsize\centering\arraybackslash}X}
\begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{|C{.6}|C{1.4}|C{1.4}|C{.6}|}
%\begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{|C{.15}|C{.35}|C{.35}|C{.15}|}
    \hline
    Inégalité & Phrase & Représentation graphique & Intervalle\
    \hline
    $x<2$ & Bla & \fbox{\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=0.5, >=stealth]
                % Repère
                \def\xm{-4.9}
                \def\xM{-\xm}
                \draw[thick,->] (\xm,0) -- (\xM,0) ; 
                \foreach \x in {-4,...,4} {\node at (\x,0) {\tiny $|$} ; }
                \node[below] at (0,0) {\footnotesize $0$} ;
                \node[below] at (1,0) {\footnotesize $1$} ;
                % Intervalle
                \draw[line width=2.5pt] (-2,0) node {$]$} --(4,0) node {$]$} ;
    \end{tikzpicture}} & $x\in\ldots$ \
    \hline
\end{tabularx}
\end{document}

Problems (see picture below) :

• the array width is too large, and I can't figure out why ;
• with redefining \arraystretch, the content is not anymore vertically centered ;
• the TikZ scheme is not vertically centered. If I embed it inside a new \parbox[c], I need to repeat horizontal centering instruction, which I find redundant and inelegant.

Additionnally, the tabularx declaration \begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{|C{.15}|C{.35}|C{.35}|C{.15}|} gives the same result, whereas it should'nt (if I understood right this answer, for example).

Thanks in advance for any tip or help.

Answer 1

Your table is not too large, it is indented. Use \noindent and everything is fine. To have some padding at the top and bottom of cells, rather than playing with the value of \arraystretch, I'd recommend loading the cellspace package, which enables you to define minimal distances between the top of cells and the above row, and between the bottom of cells and the below row, in columns with specifier prefixed with the letter S (or whatever letter you declare if you load siunitx, which defines an S column type).

\documentclass[12pt, a4paper]{book}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{mathpazo}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage[showframe]{geometry}
\usepackage[french]{babel}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{cellspace}
\setlength{\cellspacetoplimit}{10pt}
\setlength{\cellspacebottomlimit}{10pt}
\addparagraphcolumntypes{X}
\geometry{vmargin=1.5cm, hmargin=1cm, headheight=1cm, headsep=0.5cm, footskip=1cm}
\begin{document}
Compléter le tableau suivant:
%\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{3}
\renewcommand{\tabularxcolumn}[1]{m{#1}}
\newcolumntype{C}[1]{>{\hsize=#1\hsize\centering\arraybackslash}S{X}}
\noindent
\begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{|C{.6}|C{1.4}|C{1.4}|C{.6}|}
    \hline
    Inégalité & Phrase & Représentation graphique & Intervalle \
    \hline
    $x<2$ & Bla & \fbox{\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=0.5, >=stealth]
                % Repère
                \def\xm{-4.9}
                \def\xM{-\xm}
                \draw[thick,->] (\xm,0) -- (\xM,0) ;
                \foreach \x in {-4,...,4} {\node at (\x,0) {\tiny $|$} ; }
                \node[below] at (0,0) {\footnotesize $0$} ;
                \node[below] at (1,0) {\footnotesize $1$} ;
                % Intervalle
                \draw[line width=2.5pt] (-2,0) node {$]$} --(4,0) node {$]$} ;
    \end{tikzpicture}} & $x\in\ldots$ \
    \hline
\end{tabularx}
\end{document} 

Answer 2

With use of the tabularray package, table code is simple:

\documentclass[12pt, a4paper]{book}
\usepackage[hmargin=1cm, vmargin=1.5cm,
            headheight=1cm, headsep=0.5cm,
            footskip=1cm,
            showframe
            ]{geometry}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{mathpazo}
\usepackage[french]{babel}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{arrows.meta}
\tikzset{TAB/.style = {
           > = Straight Barb,
    BRR/.style = {{Bracket[reversed,length=0.5mm]}-{Bracket[reversed,length=0.5mm]}, 
                  shorten <=-.5mm,shorten >=-0.5mm},
    lbl/.style = {below, font=\scriptsize},
                    }
        }
\usepackage{tabularray}
\begin{document}
Compléter le tableau suivant:
\noindent%
\begin{tblr}{hlines, vlines,
             colspec={X[0.6,c] X[c] X[c] X[0.6,c]},
             rowsep=7pt,
             row{1} = {font=\bfseries},
             }
Inégalité & Phrase & Représentation graphique & Intervalle\
$x<2$ & Bla & \fbox{\begin{tikzpicture}[TAB,baseline=(Base.base)]
                \draw[->] (-2.4,0) -- (2.4,0) ;
                \foreach \x in {-4,...,4}
                    \draw (0.5*\x,1mm) -- ++ (0,-2mm);
                \node (Base) [lbl] at (0.0,0) {0};
                \node        [lbl] at (0.5,0) {1};
                \draw[very thick, BRR]
                    (-1,0) -- (2,0);
                    \end{tikzpicture}
                    }
                & $x\in\ldots$      \
\end{tblr}
\end{document}