Graphics, Figures & Tables ⇒ Longtable package is not working in two column mode

[arul]

Hi all
I have 5 pages long table in my latex two column document. I used longtable package it shows error cant use is two column mode. Is there any otherway to split long tables in my twocolumn document?

thanks in advance

regards
a r u l

[gmedina]

Hi,

in effect, as the longtable documentation (page 8) mentions:

longtable now issues an error if started in the scope of \twocolumn, or the multicols environment.

A possible solution: use \onecolumn to temporarily switch to one column mode and build the table, and then use \twocolumn to swith back to two column mode:

Code: Select all

\documentclass[twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{lipsum}% just to automatically generate some text

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1-10]
\onecolumn
\begin{longtable}{cc}
  text & text\\
  text & text\\
  text & text\\
  text & text\\
  text & text\\
  text & text\\
  text & text\\
\end{longtable}
\twocolumn
\lipsum[1-10]

\end{document}

You will notice the poor column balancing obtained in page two in the above example. A better way to deal with two column documents is to use the multicol package:

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{lipsum}% just to automatically generate some text

\begin{document}
\begin{multicols}{2}
  \lipsum[1-10]
\end{multicols}
\onecolumn
\begin{longtable}{cc}
  text & text\\
  text & text\\
  text & text\\
  text & text\\
  text & text\\
  text & text\\
  text & text\\
\end{longtable}
\begin{multicols}{2}
  \lipsum[1-10]
\end{multicols}

\end{document}

[frabjous]

The supertabular and xtab packages will allow you to have a long multi-page table in a multiple column environment, but they don’t seem to actually wrap the table across the columns. I'd actually recommend using the tabbing environment instead if you can get away with it.