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I have some narrow text and tabular environments that I'd like to center based on the horizontal space they use up in total. However, it's important that when centered, the original alignments between the elements are preserved. So the effect would be more like increasing margins. Naturally, centering won't work, as it centers every element individually.

The closest I've come is using a minipage and scaling the width by eye. The total width of the page content might vary though. So is there a way to do this kind of centering?

I guess if there's a way to measure the total width that a page takes, it could be fed to minipage. I have very little experience with LaTeX macros and what's generally possible. So any help would be greatly appreciated!

Here's an example.

And a minimal code with all cases:

documentclass[12pt]{article}

usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}

usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

usepackage[finnish]{babel}

usepackage{gensymb}



setlength{parskip}{1em}



begin{document}



Intro



begin{tabular}{l|l}

    C & C \

end{tabular}



Juttu



begin{tabular}{l|l|l|l}

    C & C & Am & G \

    C Dm & C & C quad G G & C \

    C & C & Am & G \

    C Dm & C & C quad G G & C \

end{tabular}



centering

Intro



begin{tabular}{l|l}

    C & C \

end{tabular}



Juttu



begin{tabular}{l|l|l|l}

    C & C & Am & G \

    C Dm & C & C quad G G & C \

    C & C & Am & G \

    C Dm & C & C quad G G & C \

end{tabular}



centering

begin{minipage}{0.3linewidth}

    setlength{parskip}{1em}



    Intro



    begin{tabular}{l|l}

        C & C \

    end{tabular}



    Juttu



    begin{tabular}{l|l|l|l}

        C & C & Am & G \

        C Dm & C & C quad G G & C \

        C & C & Am & G \

        C Dm & C & C quad G G & C \

    end{tabular}

end{minipage}

end{document}

Instead of a minipage you could use a varwidth environment - this will automatically shrink to the necessary width:

documentclass[12pt]{article}

usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}

usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

usepackage[finnish]{babel}

usepackage{gensymb}



setlength{parskip}{1em}



usepackage{varwidth}



begin{document}



centering

begin{varwidth}{linewidth}

    setlength{parskip}{1em}



    Intro



    begin{tabular}{l|l}

        C & C \

    end{tabular}



    Juttu



    begin{tabular}{l|l|l|l}

        C & C & Am & G \

        C Dm & C & C quad G G & C \

        C & C & Am & G \

        C Dm & C & C quad G G & C \

    end{tabular}

end{varwidth}

end{document}

I would just set the constructions inside a tabular (that doesn't have any column padding, although that's necessary). The tabular will expand as needed, ultimately representing an unbreakable box that you can centre:

documentclass{article}



usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}



begin{document}



centering

begin{tabular}{@{} l @{}}

  Intro \

  \

  begin{tabular}{ l | l }

    C & C

  end{tabular} \

  \

  Juttu \

  \

  begin{tabular}{ l | l | l | l }

    C & C & Am & G \

    C Dm & C & C quad G G & C \

    C & C & Am & G \

    C Dm & C & C quad G G & C

  end{tabular}

end{tabular}



end{document}