How to break a line in a table

Question

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How to add a forced line break inside a table cell

In a table I would like to have a line break in the text inside a cell. Is there an easy way to do so, or do I have to create a new line without borders? The same holds true for other situations such as breaking a line in a caption for instance.

It took me a while to understand the problem, it might be worth stating that simply using a \ in the text created a new line for all columns and this (presumably) is what you are trying to avoid. — Yossi Farjoun, Jul 29 '10 at 00:04
You can also use a minipage inside your table (it's similar to a parbox). — Rebekah, Jul 29 '10 at 03:42
@Yossi: exactly, using \ acts weird in a table, and has no effect in a caption. I think there are many cases where you can't use \ but stil would like to break line. In a figure / box e.g. — damusnet, Jul 29 '10 at 19:11
See also How to add a forced line break inside a table cell. — Martin Scharrer, Jul 26 '11 at 05:29
You might want to use varwidth which provides a minipage with variable width (e,g, just as much width as needed for the content) in which you can break lines — Jaleks, Feb 02 '20 at 18:21

score 72 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 13 '17 at 08:22

72

Would a \parbox work?

\begin{tabular}{ll}
one line& \parbox[t]{5cm}{another\\column}\\
second line here& and here
\end{tabular}

edited Jul 13 '17 at 08:22

David Carlisle

757,742

answered Jul 28 '10 at 15:27

Yossi Farjoun

13,274
10
74
96

2

Is it possible to make parbox tight and omitting the width parameter somehow? And how to make it centered? – nimcap Dec 20 '11 at 15:31
@nimcap: better to start a new question than put it here...What do you mean by tight? a table is flexible and its width depends on the width of its contents? center by centering the column of the table (using c) and centering the parbox, using \begin{center}.... – Yossi Farjoun Dec 22 '11 at 02:23
1

@YossiFarjoun: I started a new question here: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/38924/newline-in-a-table-cell-which-is-centered – nimcap Dec 22 '11 at 08:44
1

@nimcap: and arn't you glad you did? ;-) – Yossi Farjoun Dec 22 '11 at 17:27

score 51 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 15 '17 at 13:47

51

\newline works in paragraph columns

Example:

\begin{tabular}{|p{3cm}|p{3cm}|}
first line
\newline second line & still on first line \\
\end{tabular}

edited Jul 15 '17 at 13:47

David Carlisle

757,742

answered Feb 05 '11 at 22:15

Tomasz

641

score 15 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 13 '17 at 08:22

15

Is this for a single cell, or an entire column of cells? If the later, try:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
    \begin{tabular}{lp{.2\textwidth}l}
        42 & A paragraph of text & 42\\
        42 & Another paragraph & 42
    \end{tabular}
\end{document}

Even if it is for a single cell, I suspect that this is still the way to go.

edited Jul 13 '17 at 08:22

David Carlisle

757,742

answered Jul 28 '10 at 15:51

vanden

30,891
23
67
87

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 20 '11 at 08:39

5

\usepackage{pbox}

\begin{tabular}{|l|l|} \hline
    \pbox{20cm}{This is the first \\ cell} & second \\ \hline
    3rd & and the last cell \\ \hline
\end{tabular}

answered Feb 20 '11 at 08:39

2

Thanks for the code example. Generally, it would be great to add some explanation to code in answers. In this special case, the reader can find some words here: How to add a forced line break inside a table cell. – Stefan Kottwitz Feb 26 '11 at 14:35

score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 03 '10 at 13:01

Regarding line breaks in captions: if you use the caption package \\ works. In the optional argument you should protect it. Here's a demonstration example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[font=small,labelfont=bf]{caption}
\begin{document}
\listoffigures
\bigskip
\begin{figure}[hb]
\centering Test
\caption[Short\protect\\text]{Test\\example}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

Because the caption package provides a lot of features regarding justification and customization I would not work without it. But if you really wish to avoid this package, it can also be done using \parbox. The optional positioning parameter t might be useful:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\listoffigures
\bigskip
\begin{figure}[hb]
\centering Test
\caption[Short\protect\\text]{\parbox[t]{0.2\textwidth}{Just a Test\\example}}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

Thanks for your fine code! I had an awful error in the subfigure environment, but your idea of using \protect\\ instead of \\ has fixed it. (I had given \\ as a macro parameter and it did not work). — loved.by.Jesus, Oct 15 '15 at 14:19

How to break a line in a table

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