Confine table to left column in two-column page

Question

Is it possible to set a property for a table such that it is restricted to one particular column.

This refers to the cases when I have a large table and I specify the table to be at either the bottom or the top with \begin{table}[!b].

However If I add too much text above the table, the table moves to the right column with all the text that is supposed to appear after the table coming in the place where the table should be.

I want the table to be restricted to the left column and any excess text to be wrapped around such that it continues on the right column.

Right now, I am doing it via trial and error such that if there is a particularly big table, I can't have more than 4 lines in the same column. If I add more text, the whole thing becomes displaced.

MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{times}
\usepackage{latexsym}

\begin{document}
\twocolumn
\lipsum[1]
\begin{table}[!b]
\begin{tabular}{|p{7.7cm}|}
\hline
\lipsum[1]
\lipsum[2]
\lipsum[1]
\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}

I would like the text to wrap around the table with the table staying at the left column instead of moving right

Note, there is a rather small size limit on bottom floats (\def\bottomfraction{.3} as opposed to \def\topfractionj{.7}). — John Kormylo, Jan 10 '17 at 23:15
Why would a general question not require an MWE? \begin{table}[!b] does not do what you say. This will not allow the table to be at the top, but only at the bottom. If you want to make sure it makes it into this column, put it early in the column. If you really intend this as a general question, it must be a duplicate of *the* question on float placement. — cfr, Jan 11 '17 at 02:11
@JohnKormylo I don't think that is the problem here as the table still is at the bottom but at the right column instead of the left. See my MWE — Nikhil Prabhu, Jan 11 '17 at 12:27
If you had put \lipsum[1-6] AFTER the table you would realize that your table is actually being pushed to the end of the document. Frankly, a table this big needs \begin{table*}[p]. — John Kormylo, Jan 11 '17 at 16:09

John Kormylo · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-11T16:22:01.343

This MWE demonstrates that it IS possible to put a large table at the bottom of the current column. For tables larger than 0.8\textheight you will also need to reduce \textfraction (default is 0.2).

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{times}
\usepackage{latexsym}

\def\bottomfraction{.7}

\begin{document}
\twocolumn\sloppy
\begin{table}[b]
\rule{\columnwidth}{.69\textheight}
\end{table}

\lipsum[1-10]
\end{document}

Confine table to left column in two-column page

1 Answers1