2

I want to generate a nice PDF automatically. It mostly works really well, mainly the tables are missing.

I just realized that I don't know any way to get a decent column width automatically. Do you know one?

(I could use Python before)

Minimal Example 1: The default table

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

\begin{document}
\begin{table}
    \begin{tabular}{|l|l|}
    \hline
    Lorem & Long \\\hline
    ipsum & Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. \\\hline
    foo   & Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. \\\hline
    bar   & Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. \\\hline
    \end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}

gives

enter image description here

Minimal Example 2: HTML

To show that it can be done better, I made structurally the same table with HTML and printed it with Chrome:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title></title>
</head>
<body>
<table border="1">
    <tr>
        <th>Lorem</th>
        <th>Long</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>ipsum</td>
        <td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>foo</td>
        <td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>bar</td>
        <td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.</td>
    </tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>

gives

enter image description here

Obviously, this is much better.

Minimal Example 3: tabularx

tabularx with the X column spaces the columns at least evenly and makes the cells break lines, but it does not move the cells width so that the total table length is minizmized:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}
    \begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{|X|X|}
    \hline
    Lorem & Long \\\hline
    ipsum & Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. \\\hline
    foo   & Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. \\\hline
    bar   & Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. \\\hline
    \end{tabularx}
\end{table}
\end{document}

gives

enter image description here

Martin Thoma
  • 18,799
  • Interestingly, pandoc table.html -o table.pdf gives a bad result – Martin Thoma Sep 20 '17 at 16:34
  • 3
    You should try with \begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{|l|X|}. – Werner Sep 20 '17 at 16:40
  • The Python package weasyprint gives reasonable results ... so wasyprint + pdfcrop might be one way to automatically get reasonable tables. – Martin Thoma Sep 20 '17 at 16:45
  • @Werner My usecase is more complicated. Most of the time many columns. It is not necessarily the first column which is small. So would your approach work when the contents of columns would be switched, but the column definition line not? Or if the first column contained a bit more text - just enough to get to the middle of the page? – Martin Thoma Sep 20 '17 at 16:46
  • 1
    The column-definition {lX} will make one l-column which is as wide as its content and one X-column which will use the remaining space on the line. If you switch the content you will also have to switch the definition to {Xl}. – Ulrike Fischer Sep 20 '17 at 16:50
  • @UlrikeFischer Which is exactly my point. I wrote a program which automatically generates the LaTeX code. Completely. I don't know anything about the tables as a developer. To clarify - my program has all of the content, but I can't make assumptions about the content. So I have a list of lists of strings where each sub-list has equal length. – Martin Thoma Sep 20 '17 at 16:55
  • 1
    Try the tabulary package. – Ulrike Fischer Sep 20 '17 at 17:04
  • @MartinThoma: In answer to the question you asked: Yes. LaTeX can determine column widths automatically. But you have to provide some guidance in terms of the column specification for it to do that properly. Alternatively, one could process the table multiple times and based on some analysis determine what column specification to use. But that's not easy, and seem like you can do that outside of LaTeX more readily. – Werner Sep 20 '17 at 17:05

1 Answers1

4

try tabulary rather than tabularx it is closer to what html does (although not a lot closer:-) But it was written for the use case you describe of flowing unknown content into tables

enter image description here

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{tabulary}
\setlength\tymin{50pt}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}
    \begin{tabulary}{\textwidth}{|J|J|}
    \hline
    Lorem & Long \\\hline
    ipsum & Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. \\\hline
    foo   & Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. \\\hline
    bar   & Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. \\\hline
    \end{tabulary}
\end{table}
\end{document}
David Carlisle
  • 757,742
  • 1
    What is the difference between \linewidth and \textwidth? – Martin Thoma Sep 21 '17 at 09:38
  • While this is closer to the solution I need, it still has one severe problem: If the table is very long, breaking it into multiple pages is not done. Does longtable have something similar to J? – Martin Thoma Sep 21 '17 at 12:10
  • 1
    you can find a page breaking version of tabulary on this site I think... – David Carlisle Sep 21 '17 at 16:32
  • 1
    @MartinThoma https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/78075/multi-page-with-tabulary/87409#87409 – David Carlisle Sep 21 '17 at 16:33
  • 2
    @MartinThoma \linewidth is the width of the current line and \textwidth is the width of the text block on the page. So they are different in two column or in an indented list or in a minipage or parbox or ... – David Carlisle Sep 21 '17 at 16:34