Creating a table in two column style page

Question

I want to create a table, in a two column style page (IEEEtran) which will range in both columns. Any idea about this issue?

Answer 1

You could use the table* environment:

\documentclass{IEEEtran}% http://www.ctan.org/pkg/ieeetran
\usepackage{lipsum}% http://ctan.org/pkg/lipsum
\begin{document}
\section{A section}
\begin{table*}[t]
  \centering
  \begin{tabular}{*{15}{c}}
    \hline
    One & Two & Three & Four & Five & Six & Seven & Eight & Nine & Ten & Eleven & Twelve & Thirteen & Fourteen & Fifteen \\
    \hline
    Fifteen & Fourteen & Thirteen & Twelve & Eleven & Ten & Nine & Eight & Seven & Six & Five & Four & Three & Two & One \\
    \hline
  \end{tabular}
  \caption{Here is a caption.}
\end{table*}
\lipsum[1-20]
\end{document}

There are problems with this approach, like the fact that the float will most certainly follow the page that it is defined on and could therefore cause floats to get intermixed.

Read more about page-wide floats in twocolumn format on the TeX FAQ entry: Wide figures in two-column documents