how to have a caption on top of longtable?

Question

I want to have a longtable like this:

\begin{center}
\begin{longtable}{|p{2cm}|p{3cm}|p{7cm}|p{3cm}|}
\caption{my caption}
\hline
1 & 2 & 3 & 4\\ 
\hline 
\hline
1 & 2 & 3 & 4\\
\hline
1 & 2 & 3 & 4\\
\hline
.
.
.
1 & 2 & 3 & 4\\
\hline

\label{variability_impl_mech}
\end{longtable}
\end{center}

but when I try to compile this, I get this error: !Misplaced \noalign

when I write the caption after the last \hline, it works fine. I want to have the caption on top of my table but this error appears.

To start with, remove the \begin{center} and \end{center} instructions -- a longtable is automatically centered. Second, add a double backslash after \caption{...}. — Mico, Dec 22 '14 at 20:44

score 62 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 22 '14 at 20:34

62

\begin{longtable}{|p{2cm}|p{3cm}|p{7cm}|p{3cm}|}
\caption{my caption}\\    %%%%<===
\hline

and you should put the \label after \caption, which makes more sense.

answered Dec 22 '14 at 20:34

13

As an addition to the original answer using the label after caption should be as \caption{my caption} \label{my label}\ not as \caption{my caption}\ \label{my label} – Amarjit Dhillon Jul 07 '18 at 20:52
1

For me it doesn't compile without \endfirsthead and \endhead. See @Benjamin McKay's answer. – user2340939 Sep 17 '20 at 06:59
2

In my current version of Miktex (and when pushed up to overleaf), compilation would stall and hang without adding the "\" after the caption command. Hopefully that will help others running into this problem in the current version. – jgoeders Nov 18 '20 at 15:59

score 26 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 22 '14 at 23:34

26

Another way: use head and first head:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{longtable}
\begin{document}

\begin{longtable}{|p{2cm}|p{3cm}|p{7cm}|p{3cm}|}
\caption{my caption}
\label{variability_impl_mech}
\endfirsthead
\endhead
\hline
1 & 2 & 3 & 4\\ 
%\hline 
\hline
1 & 2 & 3 & 4\\
\hline
1 & 2 & 3 & 4\\
\hline
.
.
.
1 & 2 & 3 & 4\\
\hline
\end{longtable}

\end{document}

edited Dec 22 '14 at 23:34

David Carlisle

757,742

answered Dec 22 '14 at 20:42

Benjamin McKay

4,171

This is the only way it worked for me, with a \label after \caption. – EzPizza Mar 21 '21 at 23:03

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 26 '18 at 14:16

I had a problem with it, because I generate my tables with the library pandas from python. In this way.

print(tabla_1.to_latex(index = False, longtable=True))

But the problem is that pandas generate my longtables in this way:

\begin{longtable}{lrrr}
\toprule
                  Nombre &  No datos &  P. rango &  total\_isnull \\
\midrule

So I tried to put \labeland \caption before \toprule, but it nevers compile. So my solution was change \toprule for \hline and then you'll have your compilation, example:

\begin{longtable}{lrrr}
\label{YourLabel}
\Caption{YourCaption}
\hline
                  Nombre &  No datos &  P. rango &  total\_isnull \\
\midrule

I create tables using pandas in the same way and I find things work properly when placing \caption{the caption}\label{the label}\\ after the \begin{longtable} line as mentioned by @Herbert — jeschwar, Jan 07 '19 at 17:36

how to have a caption on top of longtable?

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