How to make table extend onto second column

Question

I have a two column document and a long table. I would like the table to start in one column and then extend into the next column.

I know about the table* environment; I don't want a table that is the width of both columns of the text. I want a table that is the width of one column of text, but longer than the column of text so it has to extend on the the next column.

Is this even possible in LaTeX? I know I can do this in Word (ick!).

Does this post help: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/30985/displaying-a-wide-figure-in-a-two-column-document — cmhughes, Oct 14 '11 at 17:27
No, not really. It's not what I was trying to do. In hindsight, I shouldn't even have considered it because it would look awful. — jlconlin, Oct 17 '11 at 19:50

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 14 '11 at 14:12

1

Yes, by using the starred table* environment. Note that this limits the placement of the column to either the top of the page or on a page of its own.

\documentclass[twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}  % for lorem ipsum

\begin{document}
\begin{table*}
\begin{tabular}{p{.9\textwidth}}
\lipsum[1]
\end{tabular}
\end{table*}
\lipsum[2-12]
\end{document}

answered Oct 14 '11 at 14:12

Torbjørn T.

206,688

I knew about the table* environment. However, that's not exactly what I want. I want a table that flows from one column to the next. I don't want a table that is the width of both columns. I'll rewrite my question to make it more clear. – jlconlin Oct 14 '11 at 14:16
@Jeremy I see, sorry for the misunderstanding. – Torbjørn T. Oct 14 '11 at 14:21

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 14 '11 at 14:52

1

The wrapfig package provides the wrapfigure environment which might do what you want however this is something that requires a lot of manual adjustment and my advice would be not to do this but use table* and have the figure float as would be usual in academic documents.

answered Oct 14 '11 at 14:52

John Williams

26

I figured it wasn't worth doing. It was for my boss. I told him it wasn't a good idea, but he wanted to try it anyway. – jlconlin Oct 14 '11 at 17:16

How to make table extend onto second column

2 Answers2