Fitting a table in 2 column paper format

Question

I am having a hard time trying to fit a table in my 2 column latex paper.

    \documentclass[nocrop]{bioinfo}

     \usepackage[english]{babel}

    \usepackage{dsfont}
    \usepackage{natbib}
    \usepackage{tabularx}
     \bibliographystyle{natbib.bst}
    \copyrightyear{2020} \pubyear{2020}
     \access{Advance Access Publication Date: Day Month Year}
    \appnotes{Manuscript Category}

    \begin{document}
\begin{table}[!b]
\centering
\processtable{Precision, Recall and Accuracy of graphs elucidated with BIC score, $Score_{LOPC}$ and $Score_{LASSO}$. Search method: greedy hill-climbing search \label{Tab:02}} {\begin{tabularx}{\columnwidth}{@{}lllllll@{}}

\toprule Score & $\gamma$& Max parents & Precision  & Recall & SHD  & BAC\\\midrule

BIC             & -     & 3 & 0.4626 & 0.5212 & 135.52  & 0.7446 \\

$Score_{LOPC}$  & 0.6   & 3 & \textbf{0.5162} & 0.5242 & \textbf{120.89} & \textbf{0.7491} \\

$Score_{LASSO}$ & 0.6   & 3 & \textbf{0.5042} & 0.5328 & \textbf{123.9} & \textbf{0.7526} \\
\midrule
BIC         & -     & Inf & 0.1608 & \textbf{0.6954} & 504.77  & 0.7494 \\

$Score_{LOPC}$  & 0.6 & Inf & \textbf{0.2024} & 0.6733 & \textbf{379.93} & \textbf{0.7652} \\
$Score_{LASSO}$ & 0.6   & Inf & \textbf{0.1758} & 0.6929 & \textbf{456.13} & \textbf{0.7585} \\
\botrule
\end{tabularx}}{}
\end{table}


\begin{table}%[!ht]
\processtable{Total number and percentage of experimentally verified arcs found using BN structure learning with BIC, $Score_{LOPC}$ and $Score_{LASSO}$. Search Method: Greedy hill-climbing search \label{Tab:03}} {\begin{tabularx}{\columnwidth}{@{}p{2cm}p{0.5cm}p{1cm}p{2cm}p{2cm}@{}}  
\toprule Score & $\gamma$ & Total arcs & $\%$ of experimentally verified arcs & No. of experimentally verified arcs \\\midrule
BIC      & -    & 7742 & 19.32 & 1496 \\
$Score_{LOPC}$ & 0.0 & 1276 & 18.02 & 230  \\
$Score_{LOPC}$ & 0.2 & 1788 & 18.51 & 331 \\
\midrule
$Score_{LASSO}$ & 0.0 & 1355 & 20.22 & 274  \\
$Score_{LASSO}$ & 0.2 & 1374 & 20.08 & 376 \\
\botrule
\end{tabularx}}{}
\end{table}

It is hard to make a MWE because it happens what i compile the entire paper, not when i only have the tables in my work. The column next to the table goes blank

Answer 1

In the case of the first table, I wouldn't use a tabularx environment as no line breaks within cells are needed; I'd use a tabular* environment instead. In the case of the second table, you're not using the tabularx environment properly as none of the columns are of type X.

\documentclass[nocrop]{bioinfo}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{amsmath,tabularx,ragged2e,lipsum,microtype}
\newcolumntype{C}{>{\Centering}X}
\newcommand\vn[1]{\textrm{#1}} % how to display variable names
\begin{document}
\begin{table}[ht!]
\setlength{\tabcolsep}{0pt}
\processtable{Precision, Recall and Accuracy of graphs elucidated with BIC score, $\vn{Score}_{\vn{LOPC}}$ and $\vn{Score}_{\vn{LASSO}}$. Search method: Greedy hill-climbing search.\label{Tab:02}}%
{\begin{tabular*}{\columnwidth}{@{\extracolsep{\fill}}l *{6}{c}}
\toprule 
Score & $\gamma$ & Max parents & Precision & Recall & SHD  & BAC\\
\midrule
BIC             & --     & 3 & 0.4626 & 0.5212 & 135.52  & 0.7446 \\
$\vn{Score}_{\vn{LOPC}}$  & 0.6   & 3 & \textbf{0.5162} & 0.5242 & \textbf{120.89} & \textbf{0.7491} \\
$\vn{Score}_{\vn{LASSO}}$ & 0.6   & 3 & \textbf{0.5042} & 0.5328 & \textbf{123.9\phantom{0}} & \textbf{0.7526} \\
\midrule
BIC         & --     & Inf & 0.1608 & \textbf{0.6954} & 504.77  & 0.7494 \\
$\vn{Score}_{\vn{LOPC}}$  & 0.6 & Inf & \textbf{0.2024} & 0.6733 & \textbf{379.93} & \textbf{0.7652} \\
$\vn{Score}_{\vn{LASSO}}$ & 0.6   & Inf & \textbf{0.1758} & 0.6929 & \textbf{456.13} & \textbf{0.7585} \\
\botrule
\end{tabular*}}{}
\end{table}

\begin{table}[!h]
\processtable{Total number and percentage of experimentally verified arcs found using BN structure learning with BIC, $\vn{Score}_{\vn{LOPC}}$ and $\vn{Score}_{\vn{LASSO}}$. Search method: Greedy hill-climbing search.\label{Tab:03}}% 
{\begin{tabularx}{\columnwidth}{@{}lccCC@{}}  
\toprule 
Score & $\gamma$ & Total arcs & $\%$ of experimentally verified arcs & No. of experimentally verified arcs \\
\midrule
BIC      & --    & 7742 & 19.32 & 1496 \\
$\vn{Score}_{\vn{LOPC}}$ & 0.0 & 1276 & 18.02 & 230 \\
$\vn{Score}_{\vn{LOPC}}$ & 0.2 & 1788 & 18.51 & 331 \\
\midrule
$\vn{Score}_{\vn{LASSO}}$ & 0.0 & 1355 & 20.22 & 274 \\
$\vn{Score}_{\vn{LASSO}}$ & 0.2 & 1374 & 20.08 & 376 \\
\botrule
\end{tabularx}}{}
\end{table}

\lipsum[1-10] % generate some filler text
\end{document}

---

Addendum to address the OP's follow-up query. The amount of whitespace between the two floats and between the lower float and the text does seem to be quite excessive, doesn't it? The bioinfo document class provides the following definitions for the parameters \floatsep, \textfloatsep, and \intextsep.

% Space between floats
\setlength\floatsep    {12\p@ \@plus 2\p@ \@minus 2\p@}
% Space between floats and text
\setlength\textfloatsep{20\p@ \@plus 2\p@ \@minus 4\p@}
% Space above and below an inline figure
\setlength\intextsep   {18\p@ \@plus 2\p@ \@minus 2\p@}

Try inserting the following instructions in the preamble

\setlength\floatsep    {6pt plus 2pt minus 2pt}
\setlength\textfloatsep{6pt plus 2pt minus 2pt}
\setlength\intextsep   {6pt plus 2pt minus 2pt}

and check if the result is more pleasing.