# [texhax] using align, array, eqnarry within tabular environment

Stephen Tucker brown_emu at yahoo.com
Thu Apr 9 09:47:26 CEST 2009

Hi list,

I have a question regarding the use of align, array, or eqnarray within a table created by tabular. Align works fine by itself, or within a minipage. For example:

===================================
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}

\begin{align*}
x \protect & = y+1  \\
z \protect & = 2 x
\end{align*}

\end{document}
===================================

However, the following (- align nested within tabular -) gives
! LaTeX Error: \begin{document} ended by \end{tabular}.
! Missing \$ inserted.
and so on...
===================================
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{cc}
\begin{minipage}{2in}
\flushleft text
\end{minipage} &
\begin{align*}
x & = y+1  \\
z & = 2 x
\end{align*}
\end{tabular}

\end{document}
==================================

Even if I try to put \protect in front of & and \\, it still has problems, and putting
\protect{\begin{align*}...\end{align*}}
will put the statement on the next line rather than in the second column of the table, as I desire.

Does anyone know how to get around this behavior? Thanks very much in advance,

Stephen