Adding space between columns in a table

Question

I notice that the space between each column of a table in LaTeX is not quite wide (at least for me). Is there any way to set this? I found the \hspace, but I don't get how to use this in the table.

@Stefan: exactly the same as yours, sorry for not posting it :) Well I found something bit more general. If we want that this \tabcolsep changed everywhere, we can do \renewcommand{\tabcolsep}{0.15cm} — zfm, Apr 24 '11 at 22:40
@zfm: No, \renewcommand{\tabcolsep}{...} is definitely wrong; the correct way is with \setlength. — egreg, Apr 24 '11 at 22:55
@egreg: that's wrong? why? when I try it, I see that the space between column is added — zfm, Apr 25 '11 at 08:23
@zfm: just because it works in one instance, it doesn't mean it will work forever. Trust me and change the value of \tabcolsep with \setlength. — egreg, Apr 25 '11 at 09:38
@egreg: you meant, change \renewcommand with, \setlength, right? so in the beginning of the command, I should write \setlength{\tabcolsep}{...}, is that ok? — zfm, Apr 25 '11 at 10:18
@zfm: Yes. \tabcolsep is not a command like \section: it's a parameter which has a value and changing its meaning with \renewcommand might break a package trying to set its value with the correct method. — egreg, Apr 25 '11 at 10:52
Duplicate (more comprehensive): Column and row padding in tables — Werner, Feb 02 '15 at 19:22

score 235 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 24 '11 at 22:36

235

The parameter to act on is \tabcolsep, whose value is usually 6pt. So

\setlength{\tabcolsep}{12pt}

will double the intercolumn space. The parameter stores half the space between columns: in LaTeX each column is preceded and followed by a horizontal space \tabcolsep wide.

answered Apr 24 '11 at 22:36

egreg

1,121,712

1

In my case \tabcolsep is by default 2pt but this may be the \documentclass{revtex}. – Qbyte Oct 21 '20 at 19:30

score 220 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 15 '17 at 15:12

220

You can add space by inserting @{\hskip whatever} between the column specifiers, as in

\begin{tabular}{l@{\hskip 1in}c@{\hskip 0.5in}c}
  One&Two& Three\\
  Four& Five& Six
\end{tabular}

Actually, you can add whatever you like between the columns in place of the usual intercolumn space, e.g.,

\begin{tabular}{l@{ or }c@{\hskip 0.5in}c}
  One&Two& Three\\
  Four& Five& Six
\end{tabular}

edited Jul 15 '17 at 15:12

David Carlisle

757,742

answered Apr 24 '11 at 22:39

Phil Hirschhorn

8,942

26

Really interesting, thanks. For anyone else, if discovered: \hskip defines the horizontal space, it is not additional to any other measure. E.g. @{\hskip -0.1cm} produces a bad output (just test it). – henry Aug 05 '13 at 13:13
1

doesn't play well with \rowcolor... – PatrickT May 05 '18 at 09:52
5

Note that this overrides the default space setting, so {l@{\hskip 0in}c} means no space between the l and the c column. – einpoklum May 23 '18 at 15:30
4

doesn't play nice with multicolumn for me, not sure what the issue is – fabian789 Apr 05 '19 at 14:02
Re: multicolumns: It seems like the multicolumn span includes the space, rather than having the space be outside the column. So it might look right if the multicolumn is left-aligned, but if center- or right-aligned then it won't be correctly aligned with the non-multi-columns. Would be nice to have a solution for this because I'm not sure of another way to control spacing between each column separately. – Neil Traft Mar 06 '23 at 15:35

score 58 · Answer 3 · edited May 24 '15 at 12:12

58

If you need to adjust the spacing for just one table you could also add/remove some space before the table and restore previous value after it:

\addtolength{\tabcolsep}{-1pt}    
\begin{tabular}{cc}    
text & text    
\end{tabular}    
\addtolength{\tabcolsep}{1pt}

edited May 24 '15 at 12:12

Torbjørn T.

206,688

answered May 24 '15 at 12:09

Pietro C

1,424

In my opinion, this seems better-suited as a comment. – Werner May 24 '15 at 12:14
8

this was pretty helpful for me just now actually, nice one – baxx Oct 17 '15 at 15:34
8

If you need to adjust the spacing for just one table you could put your code into curly braces and the change will affect just the table that is inside { \setlength{\tabcolsep}{12pt} \begin{tabular}{cc} ..... } – Pietro C May 17 '18 at 11:59

score 38 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 24 '11 at 22:35

38

You can adjust the length \tabcolsep, for example:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}  
\centering
\begin{tabular}{cc}
text & text
\end{tabular}
\setlength{\tabcolsep}{3em}

\begin{tabular}{cc}
text & text
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

\tabcolsep is the space which is inserted before and after a column. Note, this means that the space between two columns is 2\tabcolsep.

answered Apr 24 '11 at 22:35

Stefan Kottwitz

231,401

@stefan How can I specify a particlular tabcolsep for only one column using pgfplotstabletypeset – Nicholas Hamilton Aug 26 '13 at 00:54
1

@ADP It seems like this could be posted as a new question, since this question is not about one column only and not related to pgfplots. – Stefan Kottwitz Aug 26 '13 at 07:09

score 6 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 23 '21 at 01:34

If you need a more natural and flexible way to adjust space between rows or columns in tables, you may try tabularray package. You can use colsep (also leftsep and rightsep) and rowsep (also abovesep and belowsep) options with tblr environment.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tabularray}
\begin{document}
\begin{tblr}{
 hlines, vlines,
 rows = {rowsep=8pt},
 columns = {colsep=8pt},
}
 Alpha   & Beta  & Gamma  & Delta \
 Epsilon & Zeta  & Eta    & Theta \
 Iota    & Kappa & Lambda & Mu    \
\end{tblr}
\bigskip
\begin{tblr}{
 hlines, vlines,
 row{1} = {abovesep=1pt,belowsep=10pt},
 column{2} = {leftsep=1pt,rightsep=10pt},
}
 Alpha   & Beta  & Gamma  & Delta \
 Epsilon & Zeta  & Eta    & Theta \
 Iota    & Kappa & Lambda & Mu    \
\end{tblr}
\end{document}

Adding space between columns in a table

5 Answers5

Linked

Related