tabular

 \begin{tabular}[pos]{cols}
 column 1 entry & column 2 entry ... & column n entry \\
 ...
 ...
 \end{tabular}
or
 \begin{tabular*}{width}[pos]{cols}
 column 1 entry & column 2 entry ... & column n entry \\
 ...
 ...
 \end{tabular*}
Note that the *-form takes an additional width mandatory argument which specifies the width of the tabular environment; in the regular form the width is determined by LaTeX from the contents of the tabular environment.

These environments produce a box consisting of a sequence of rows of items, aligned vertically in columns. The mandatory and optional arguments consist of:

Note that \\ must be used to specify the end of each line of the table, except the last. (It must be used after the last line if an \hline command is used to put a line at the bottom of the table.)

Aligning on decimal points: an example of the @ specifier

In scientific tables it is often desirable to align the columns on a decimal point. This can be done using the @ col specifier and breaking the number into the integral part in a right-justified column and the fractional part in a left-justified column:
  The following input:          will display as:

  \begin{tabular}{r@{.}l}
  3&14159\\                         3.14159
  16&2\\                           16.2
  123$456\\ \end{tabular}         123.456  
Note that the decimal point is replaced by the column separator, & and that the @suppresses the intercolumn space

Another example: centering and controlling table width

LaTeX normally sets the width of the tabular environment to "natural" width, i.e., determined from the contents of the columns. For narrow tables it is sometimes more pleasing to make them wider. The tabular* environments allows for setting a width; however, it is necessary to have rubber space between colunmns that can expand to the specified width. This can often be most easily accomplished by using an \extracolsep{wdth} command in an @ specifier as shown in the example below which sets the table width to 75% of the text width.

This example also centers the table.

  \begin{center}  % put inside center environment
  \begin{tabular*}{0.75\textwidth}%
     {@{\extracolsep{\fill}}cccr}
  label 1 & label 2 & label 3 & label 4 \\
  \hline  % put a line under headers
  item 1  & item 2  & item 3  & item 4  \\
  ...
  \end{tabular*}
  \end{center}

See also


See also table environment, array environment, tabbing environment.
Return to LaTeX Table of Contents
Revised: Sheldon Green, 22 Jun 1995.