Graphics, Figures & Tables ⇒ Using Math to Format Tables

[Rishahnu]

Hi Folks,

I would like to be able to determine table column width based on the text width. Something like the following:

Code: Select all

\begin{table*}[ht] % Table I
			\caption{Microgrid ``Functions''}
			\centering
			\begin{tabular}{p{\textwidth\4}|p{\textwidth/4}|p{\textwidth/2}}
						Actor Name															& Actor Type							& Description											\\

Where I am trying to divide the text width by 2 or 4 to get column width.

Of course it doesn't work, but there must be a way to do this?

Thanks!
Greg

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Hi Greg,

you could use coefficients:

Code: Select all

\begin{tabular}{p{.25\textwidth}} ...

Perhaps also have a look the tabularx package.


Stefan

[frabjous]

Along the lines of Stefan's suggestion, I was going to suggest multipliers like 0.25 and 0.50, but:

Code: Select all

\begin{tabular}{p{0.25\textwidth}|p{0.25\textwidth|p{0.5\textwidth}}

Will not work as expected. Why not? Well, it doesn't take into account the padding between the cells (a width of \tabcolsep -- there are six of these, one on each side of each cell), and the width of the lines (a width of \arrayrulewidth -- with your settings there are two). So I recommend defining a width that is calculated by subtracting these from \textwidth:

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}% for generating dummy text
\begin{document}
\lipsum[1]% a paragraph of dummy text for comparison
\begin{table*}[ht] % Table I
\caption{Microgrid ``Functions''}
\centering
\newlength{\tablewidth}%
\setlength{\tablewidth}{\textwidth}%
\addtolength{\tablewidth}{-6\tabcolsep}%
\addtolength{\tablewidth}{-2\arrayrulewidth}%
\begin{tabular}{p{0.25\tablewidth}|p{0.25\tablewidth}|p{0.5\tablewidth}}
Actor Name  & Actor Type & Description \\ \hline
A & B & C
\end{tabular}
\end{table*}
\end{document}

table.png (17.97 KiB) Viewed 2365 times

[Rishahnu]

Thanks folks! Your suggestions worked!

Cheers,
Greg