UK TeX FAQ -- question label slashbox

### Diagonal separation in corner cells of tables

You want to label both the top or bottom row and the left- or rightmost column, somewhere at the corner of the table where the row and column meet. A simple way to achieve the result is to construct the table with an arrangement of rules (and possibly `\``multicolumn` entries), to look like:

>     -----------------
>     x  y
>        --------------
>        1  2  3  4  5
>     -----------------
>     1
>     2
>     3
>     4
>     5
>     -----------------

However, this doesn't satisfy everyone: many want the labelling in a single cell at the top left of the table. It sounds a simple enough requirement, yet it calls for some slightly tricky LaTeX coding. The slashbox package does the job for you: it defines commands `\``slashbox` and `\``backslashbox`, each taking the two labels as arguments. It draws a picture with the two labels on either side of a slanting line; the command (and hence the picture) may be placed in the corner cell, where the labelled row and column meet.

Documentation of slashbox is less than satisfactory: a LaTeX source file of rather startling starkness accompanies the package file in the distribution. It does, however, process to a DVI file that gives some idea of how the `\``slashbox` may be expected to look.

`slashbox.sty`
  macros/latex/contrib/slashbox (zip, browse)

This question on the Web: http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=slashbox