Graphics, Figures & Tables ⇒ Table columns width: still not working (strange behaviour)

[Raindancer]

Hi, I am working on a very simple table but after have read so much documents, tutorial and examples I am still not able to realize the table I want.

I want to create just a table with three column, the first containing a short code, the second and the third a long text.

So I tried with that (and a million variations):

Code: Select all

\begin{table}
\caption{Research Questions}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{|c|lp{15em}|lp{15em}|}
\hline
& \bf{Question} & \bf{Motivation} \\ [0.5ex]
\hline \hline
\bf{RQ1} & Which journals include papers on web applications modeling? & Support web applications modeling researchers with a list of journals with potentially relevant papers.\\
  \hline

\end{tabular}
\label{table:rqs}
\end{table}

So I would expect to have the second and the third column of the same length. It seems instead that I obtain a very large second columna and a tiny third one.

The strange behaviour is this one: when I change the width supposed to affect the second column the third one is instead changed. In example this code:

Code: Select all

{|c|lp{5em}|lp{15em}|}

reduces the third column.
I really do not get it.
Any help/hint?

Thank you,
Federico

[localghost]

[...] I want to create just a table with three column, the first containing a short code, the second and the third a long text. [...]

If you want table with three columns, then why do declare five columns in the table head? With the tabularx package you can have tables across the whole text width with chosen columns calculated automatically.

Code: Select all

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper,english]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage[font=small,labelfont=bf,tableposition=top]{caption}
\usepackage{booktabs,tabularx}

\begin{document}
  \begin{table}[!ht]
    \caption{Research Questions}\label{tab:rqs}
    \centering
    \begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{cXX}\toprule
    & \textbf{Question} & \textbf{Motivation} \\ \midrule
    \textbf{RQ1} & Which journals include papers on web applications modeling? & Support web applications modeling researchers with a list of journals with potentially relevant papers. \\ \bottomrule
    \end{tabularx}
  \end{table}
\end{document} 

It is recommendable to drop vertical lines in order to improve the legibility of the table. The booktabs package allows to typeset nice looking tables.


Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten