How to set width of column's with their name in table in LaTeX?

Question

I get a solution in https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/42186/128718 where he gave a solution to create attendance sheet in LaTeX. His solution is good.

But,he put column's width and title in separate line. When I have many columns and need to change the column's width again and again to adjust it with expected looks, I have to search the p{width} for that column that is boring and time consuming.

So, if there is a way that allow to put the width alongside the column's title it is easy to change any column's width.(e.g. column{|Name}{width=2cm})

You can give any solution to create attendance sheet/other table with the expected feature.

Can you provide a minimal example that highlights your usage? — Werner, Jan 10 '18 at 04:08
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Since you have some responses below that seem to answer your question, please consider marking one of them as ‘Accepted’ by clicking on the tickmark below their vote count (see How do you accept an answer?). This shows which answer helped you most, and it assigns reputation points to the author of the answer (and to you!). It's part of this site's idea to identify good questions and answers through upvotes and acceptance of answers. — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Jan 05 '19 at 19:25
Since you have some responses below that seem to answer your question, please consider marking one of them as ‘Accepted’ by clicking on the tickmark below their vote count (see How do you accept an answer?). This shows which answer helped you most, and it assigns reputation points to the author of the answer (and to you!). It's part of this site's idea to identify good questions and answers through upvotes and acceptance of answers. — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Apr 03 '19 at 11:30

John Kormylo · Answer 1 · 2018-01-10T05:12:39.767

This uses \makebox to combine the width and title in one step. It does not check to make sure the title will fit in the space requested. Once could also use \parbox.

I started playing around with the loop to add lines, discovered it was harder than I thought, then decided it wasn't worth the effort.

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}

\def\arraystretch{2.5}% vertical spacing in multiples of \strut
\def\aline{&&&&\\\hline}% number of & = number of columns-1
\noindent\begin{tabular}{|l|l|l|l|l|}
\hline
\makebox[2cm][l]{Name}& 
\makebox[2cm][l]{Item}& 
\makebox[2cm][l]{Pickup}& 
\makebox[2cm][l]{Return}& 
\makebox[2cm][l]{Signature}\\\hline
\aline
\aline
\aline
\aline
\aline
\aline
\aline
\aline
\aline
\aline
\aline
\aline
\aline
\aline
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 10 '18 at 04:45

One possibility is to eliminate the left and right cell margins using @{} in the column definition:

\begin{tabular}{|@{}l@{}|@{}l@{}|@{}l@{}|@{}l@{}|@{}l@{}|}

Then for your header row you can overlap the header names (using \rlap) with a horizontal space of the width you desire:

\rlap{ Name}\hspace{2cm} & \rlap{ Item}\hspace{3cm} & \rlap{ Pickup}\hspace{2cm} & \rlap{ Return}\hspace{2cm} & \rlap{ Signature}\hspace{3cm}

Another possibility is to insert comments into your column definitions. You could define a macro:

\newcommand{\xx}[1]{}

that does nothing. So \xx{stuff} will basically just turn stuff into a comment. Your code would look like this:

\begin{tabular}{|p{2cm}\xx{name}|p{3cm}\xx{item}|p{2cm}\xx{pickup}|p{2cm}\xx{return}|p{3cm}\xx{sign}|}

How to set width of column's with their name in table in LaTeX?

2 Answers2