Graphics, Figures & Tables ⇒ auto-size table width to make use of all space available

[ptrcao]

goal: auto-size table width to make use of all space available

problem: table is width-wise, very long and runs off the page

do not want to manually set column width for columns. too much thinking and effort. want an automatic solution.

[localghost]

Try the tabularx package.


Thorsten

[ptrcao]

To use the tabularx package in the way I want, I have to know what the default width of the text is across the page, do you know?

As in, how do I tell tabularx just to use the full width of a line of text for the table? Use all the space available to it without going outside my page's margin.

[localghost]

To use the tabularx package in the way I want, I have to know what the default width of the text is across the page, do you know? […]

There is a length \textwidth which should be self-explanatory. More flexible is the length \linewidth. Just try and see what happens.

[…] As in, how do I tell tabularx just to use the full width of a line of text for the table? Use all the space available to it without running off the page.

Read the package manual. That's what it's made for. Either follow the link in my last reply or open a command line for access on your local machine.

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texdoc tabularx

[ptrcao]

Thank you for the \linewidth tip - I wouldn't have figured that out.

[ptrcao]

Um...there is no way to text-align the contents of the columns with the specification {X X X} used in

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\begin{tabularx}{1\linewidth}{X X X X X}

Some help on this please?

[localghost]

I'm afraid I can't follow you. Please describe more precise what you want to do and how the text alignment shall look like.

[ptrcao]

This is my table:

table.gif (48.16 KiB) Viewed 31753 times

You'll see that everything is left-aligned by default.
Suppose I want to center the text contents of columns.
Normally this is done as

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{c c c c c}

or

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{m{width} m{width} m{width} m{width} m{width}}

However, here we are using

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{X X X X X}

There is no optional argument which I can use to center the text inside columns.
I would like to center the contents nonetheless. Can you suggest how?

---------

PS. While you see my table in the image, can you suggest a solution also for the ugly situation with:

Lyx Stand-
alone

The combination of excessive spacing and hyphenation gives a really ugly look.

Edit: I think the solution would involve disabling hyphenation and disabling justified text, but I have no idea how to do this inside a table.

---------

Thank you.

[localghost]

It can't do any harm to add at least the code of the table. A complete but minimal example would be better [1]. I don't feel like writing the table from scratch for testing possible solutions.

[1] View topic: Avoidable mistakes

[ptrcao]

No problem. The minimal example is as follows. I've included the offending line also for the other problem with excessive spacing and hyphenation.

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\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{booktabs} %for top, middle and bottomline
\usepackage{array} %enables, for table columns, m{width} and b{width} (only p{width is available without it})
\usepackage{tabularx} %for automation of column widths so that the table spans the width defined by textwidth and linewidth

\begin{document}

{\small
\begin{table}[h]
\caption{Comparison of \LaTeX-based or \LaTeX-supporting Equation Editors} 
\label{editor-comparison}
\centering
\begin{tabularx}{1\linewidth}{X X X X X}
\toprule
 Editor (Type) & Edited as & Previewed as & Inserted as \\ 
\toprule
LyX (Standalone) & WYSIWYG inline or button-facilitated mark-up & WYSIWYG inline & WYSIWYG inline \\ 
\bottomrule
\end{tabularx}
\end{table}
}

\end{document}