Tables

Last updated on 2025-05-05 | Edit this page

Estimated time: 12 minutes

Overview

Questions

How do I add tables to a LaTeX document?
How can I format a table in a LaTeX document?

Objectives

Create a table in a LaTeX document.
Customize the appearance of a table in a LaTeX document.
Add horizontal lines to a table in a LaTeX document.

Defining Tables

Tables in LaTeX are set using the tabular environment. For our purposes here, we are going to use the array package to create a table, which provides additional functionality for creating tables. We’ll add this to the preamble of our document:

LATEX

\usepackage{array}

Callout

As we start to add more and more packages to our preamble, it can get a bit unwieldy. For now, let’s just keep them alphabetized to make it keep things organized. Our imports should now look like this:

LATEX

\usepackage{array}
\usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{xcolor}

In order to create a table, we need to tell latex how many columns we will need and how they should be aligned.

Available column types are:

Column Type	Description
`l`	left-aligned
`c`	centered
`r`	right-aligned
`p{width}`	a column with fixed width; the text will be automatically line wrapped and fully justified
`m{width}`	like p, but vertically centered compared to the rest of the row
`b{width}`	like p, but bottom aligned
`w{align}{width}`	prints the contents with a fixed width, silently overprinting if things get larger. (You can choose the horizontal alignment using l, c, or r.)
`W{align}{width}`	like w, but this will issue an overfull box warning if things get too wide.

Callout

The columns l, c and r will have the natural width of the widest entry in the column. Each column must be declared, so if you want a table with three centered columns, you would use ccc as the column declaration.

Creating a Table

Now that we have the array package loaded and we know how to define columns, we can create a table using the tabular environment.

Callout

Note that the & and \\ characters are aligned in our example. This isn’t strictly necessary in LaTeX, but it makes the code much easier to read.

LATEX

\section{Tables}

\kw{Tables} are defined using the \cmd{tabular} environment.

\begin{tabular}{lll}
  Fruit  & Quantity & Price \\
  Apple  & 5        & 1.50  \\
  Banana & 6        & 2.00  \\
  Orange & 4        & 1.20  \\
\end{tabular}

This will create a table with three columns, all left-aligned. The values of each row are separated by & and the rows are separated by \\. We do not yet have any horizontal lines in the table, so it will look like this:

Callout

If your table has many columns, it may get cumbersome to write out the column definitions every time. In this case you can make things easier by using *{num}{string} to repeat the string num times. For example, in our table above, we can instead write:

LATEX

\begin{tabular}{*{3}{l}}
  Fruit  & Quantity & Price \\
  Apple  & 5        & 1.50  \\
  Banana & 6        & 2.00  \\
  Orange & 4        & 1.20  \\
\end{tabular}

Adding Horizontal Lines

We’re going to introduce another package here: booktabs. This package provides a few commands that make it easier to create professional looking tables. To use it, add the following to your preamble:

LATEX

\usepackage{booktabs}

booktabs provides three commands for creating horizontal lines in your table:

\toprule: creates a line at the top of the table
\midrule: creates a line in the middle of the table
\bottomrule: creates a line at the bottom of the table

Horizontal lines make tables easier to read and understand, and they can be used to separate the header from the body of the table, and the body from the footer. We can insert these commands into our table to add horizontal lines:

LATEX

\subsection{Tables with Horizontal Lines}

We can use the \cmd{\textbackslash toprule}, \cmd{\textbackslash midrule}, and
\cmd{\textbackslash bottomrule} commands from the \cmd{booktabs} package to create horizontal
lines in our table.

\begin{tabular}{*{3}{l}}
  \toprule
  Fruit  & Quantity & Price \\
  \midrule
  Apple  & 5        & 1.50  \\
  Banana & 6        & 2.00  \\
  Orange & 4        & 1.20  \\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}

Your table should look something like this:

Example output of a table with horizontal lines

Callout

A general recommendation is to use lines sparsely in your tables, and vertical lines should be avoided.

Partial Horizontal Lines

Another useful feature of booktabs is the ability to create partial horizontal lines with the \cmidrule command. This command accepts the arguments {number-number}, where the first number is the column to start the line and the second number is the column to end the line.

LATEX

\subsection{Partial Horizontal Lines}

The \cmd{\textbackslash cmidrule} command can be used to create partial horizontal lines in a
table. The command accepts the arguments {number-number}, where the first number is the column to
start the line and last number is the column to end the line.

\begin{tabular}{*{3}{l}}
  \toprule
  Fruit  & Quantity &  Price \\
  \midrule
  Apple  & 5        &  1.50  \\
  Banana & 6        &  2.00  \\
  Orange & 4        &  1.20  \\
  \cmidrule{3-3}
  Total & 15        & 28.20  \\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}

This table should come out looking something like this:

Example output of a table with partial lines

Merging Cells

We can merge cells horizontally using the \multicolumn command. This command takes three arguments:

The number of cells which should be merged
The alignment of the merged cell (l, c, or r)
The contents of the merged cell

LATEX

\subsection{Merging Cells}

Merge cells horizontally using the \cmd{\textbackslash multicolumn} command. This command takes
three arguments:

\begin{itemize}
  \item The number of cells which should be merged
  \item The alignment of the merged cell (l, c, or r)
  \item The contents of the merged cell
\end{itemize}

\begin{tabular}{*{3}{l}}
  \toprule
  \multicolumn{3}{c}{Overall Inventory} \\
  Fruit  & Quantity &  Price  \\
  \midrule
  Apple  & 5        &  1.50   \\
  Banana & 6        &  2.00   \\
  Orange & 4        &  1.20   \\
  \midrule
  \multicolumn{2}{c}{Summary} \\
  Total & 15        & 28.20   \\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}

Callout

Vertical merging is supported in LaTeX by using the multirow package which has the \multirow command equipped with it. It is similarly structured as \multicolumn by using three arguments:

The number of rows which should be merged
The width of the column (i.e. 4em)
The contents of the merged rows.

You can find an example in the challenges below.

This will create a table that looks like this:

Example output of a table with merged cells

Challenges

Challenge 1: Can you do it?

Try to replicate the following table in LaTeX:

Make	Model	Sold
Volkswagen	Golf	7,687
Skoda	Octavia	4,078
Seat	Leon	3,922
Volkswagen	Passat	3,776
Mercedes	GLK,GLC	3,143
	Total	22,606

Your LaTaX version should look something like this.

Note that the last row is a bit different from the others. The first two columns re merged, the text “Total” is right-aligned and bold, and the value in the last column is italicized.

(Data for this challenge is from Statista)

Answer

LATEX

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{booktabs}

\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{lll}
  \toprule
  Make        & Model   & Sold   \\
  \midrule
  Volkswagen  & Golf    & 7,687 \\
  Skoda       & Octavia & 4,078 \\
  Seat        & Leon    & 3,922 \\
  Volkswagen  & Passat  & 3,776 \\
  Mercedes    & GLK,GLC & 3,143 \\
  \midrule
  \multicolumn{2}{r}{\textbf{Total}} & \textit{22,606} \\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

Challenge 2: Merging rows.

Consider the following LaTeX code that creates a table using the command \multirow. Can you guess how this table will look like? How many columns will it have? How many rows? Are any rows or columns combined?

LATEX


\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{multirow}

\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{*{4}{l}}
  \toprule
    & Food & Quantity &  Price  \\
  \midrule
  \multirow{3}{4em}{Fruit} & Apple  & 5  &  1.50   \\
  & Banana & 6        &  2.00   \\
  & Orange & 4        &  1.20   \\
  \midrule
  \multirow{2}{4em}{Cheese} & Brie & 2 & 3.30 \\
   & Asiago   & 3 & 2.90   \\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

Show me the solution

The table will have 4 columns where the first column does not have a column name. The table will have 6 rows. The first row is the column name row. Rows 2 to 4 are merged for “Fruit”. Rows 5 and 6 are merged for “Cheese”.

Hint: We want to make sure the caption stays with the table, so we should put the table inside an environment. For images we use the “figure” environment, but for tables we can use the “table” environment.

Challenge 3: Adding merged rows to your table.

Consider again the LaTeX code for the table in challenge 3. Add four more rows to this table that contain information about the following four sorts of bread:

Brioche, 3, 3.00
Bagel, 2, 3.50
Matzah, 4, 3.60
Naan, 2, 3.40

Use \multirow to subsume those bread types under the category “Bread”.

Show me the solution

LATEX

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{multirow}

\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{*{4}{l}}
  \toprule
    & Food & Quantity &  Price  \\
  \midrule
  \multirow{3}{4em}{Fruit} & Apple  & 5  &  1.50   \\
  & Banana & 6        &  2.00   \\
  & Orange & 4        &  1.20   \\
  \midrule
  \multirow{2}{4em}{Cheese} & Brie & 2 & 3.30 \\
   & Asiago   & 3 & 2.90   \\
   \midrule
  \multirow{4}{4em}{Bread} & Brioche & 3 & 3.00 \\
  & Bagel & 2 & 3.50 \\
  & Matzah & 4 & 3.60 \\
  & Naan & 2 & 3.40 \\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

Challenge 4: Making the Table Colorful

We used the xcolor package to add color to our text in an earlier episode. Can you use the xcolor package to make the header and summary rows of the table in Challenge 1 a different color? What about changing the color of the text in the summary row? Can we make the rows of the table alternate colors?

A few things that will help you: - We need to import the xcolor package in the preamble of our document. - The xcolor package doesn’t automatically support coloring tables, so we need to add the table option to the package import. - \rowcolor{(<color>} - \rowcolors{<starting row number>}{<color1>}{<color2>} - You can make lighter versions of colors by adding !<percentage> to the color name. For example, red!10 is a light red color, while red!90 is a darker red color.

There’s no right answer to this challenge, so feel free to experiment with different colors! Here’s an example of what you can do.

Show me the solution

LATEX

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor} % Import xcolor with the table option

\begin{document}

\begin{table}[ht]
  \centering
  \rowcolors{2}{red!10}{gray!10} % Alternate row colors between red and gray
  \begin{tabular}{lll}
    \toprule
    \rowcolor{green!20} % Set the header row color to green
    Make          & Model            & Sold  \\
    \midrule
    Volkswagen    & Golf             & 7,687 \\
    Skoda         & Octavia          & 4,078 \\
    Seat          & Leon             & 3,922 \\
    Volkswagen    & Passat           & 3,776 \\
    Mercedes      & GLK,GLC          & 3,143 \\
    \midrule
    \rowcolor{blue!20} % Set the summary row color to blue
    \multicolumn{2}{r}{
      % Set the text color to blue and bold for the summary row
      \textbf{\textcolor{blue!75}{Total}}} & \textit{\textcolor{blue!75}{22,606}} \\
    \bottomrule
  \end{tabular}

  \caption{Car Sales by Make/Model (January 2025)} % Add a caption to the table

\end{table}

\end{document}

Key Points

Tables in LaTeX are created using the tabular environment.
The array package provides additional functionality for creating tables.
The booktabs package provides commands for creating horizontal lines in tables.
The \multicolumn command can be used to merge cells in a table.
The \multirow command in the multirow package can be used to merge rows in a table.

Show details

After this episode, here is what our LaTeX document looks like.