"! Misplaced \omit" error

Question

The code below describes a table that goes like:

|_|x x|x x|

|x|x|x|x|x|

|x|x|x|x|x|

where

|_| = empty cell, |x x| = multicolumn{2}, |x| = cell with text in it.

\begin{tabular}{c|c|c|c|c|}
\label{tlc}
\cline{2-5}
& \multicolumn{2}{|c}{1 Sec Trials} & \multicolumn{2}{|c|}{100 Sec Trials} \\
\hline
\multicolumn{1}{|c|}{Target Rate} & Mean & Std. Dev & Mean & Std. Dev \\
\hline
\multicolumn{1}{|r|}{1Hz} & 1.07 & 1.08 & 1.22 & 0.11 \\
\multicolumn{1}{|r|}{5Hz} & 4.71 & 2.09 & 4.51 & 0.21 \\
\multicolumn{1}{|r|}{10Hz} & 10.3 & 3.28  & 10.1 & 0.32 \\
\multicolumn{1}{|r|}{100Hz} & 93.6 & 9.91 & 94.6 & 0.97 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}

However, when I run it I get an error that reads

! Misplaced \omit.
\@cline #1-#2\@nil ->\omit
\@multicnt #1\advance \@multispan \m@ne \ifnum \@...
l.60 \cline{2-5}
I expect to see \omit only after tab marks or the \cr of
an alignment. Proceed, and I'll ignore this case.

I've Googled around and it seems that people often get errors like this when nesting \multicolumns inside \multirows, or when they put text in the cell before starting the \multicolumn. But that is not the case in my code.

Can anyone tell me what is going on??

Note for future readers: the error itself is not caused by the \label, it's caused by \cline being not at the start of the cell (technically "alignment entry"), but nevertheless it does not make sense for \label to be placed inside a tabular anyway. — user202729, Oct 26 '22 at 01:19
Note for future readers: the error itself is not caused by the \label, it's caused by \cline being not at the start of the cell (technically "alignment entry"), but nevertheless it does not make sense for \label to be placed inside a tabular anyway. If you see the same error message your problem might be one of tables - Custom macro for multicolumn with & without xparse or tables - Multicolumn error when used within a newcommand with \@ifstar instead, but the fundamental cause is the same. — user202729, Oct 26 '22 at 01:38

score 18 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 11 '17 at 11:20

You cannot place a \label as the first element in a cell. If you're interested in labelling the table, place the tabular in a table environment, add a \caption and place the \label after it:

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}
  \centering
  \begin{tabular}{c|c|c|c|c|}
    \cline{2-5}
    & \multicolumn{2}{|c}{1 Sec Trials} & \multicolumn{2}{|c|}{100 Sec Trials} \\
    \hline
    \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{Target Rate} & Mean & Std. Dev & Mean & Std. Dev \\
    \hline
    \multicolumn{1}{|r|}{1Hz} & 1.07 & 1.08 & 1.22 & 0.11 \\
    \multicolumn{1}{|r|}{5Hz} & 4.71 & 2.09 & 4.51 & 0.21 \\
    \multicolumn{1}{|r|}{10Hz} & 10.3 & 3.28  & 10.1 & 0.32 \\
    \multicolumn{1}{|r|}{100Hz} & 93.6 & 9.91 & 94.6 & 0.97 \\
    \hline
  \end{tabular}
  \caption{Here is a caption}\label{tlc}
\end{table}
\end{document}

Here is a booktabs alternative to your tabular:

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs}% http://ctan.org/pkg/booktabs
\begin{document}
\begin{table}
  \centering
  \begin{tabular}{r*{4}{c}}
    \toprule
    & \multicolumn{2}{c}{1 Sec Trials} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{100 Sec Trials} \\
    \cmidrule(lr){2-3} \cmidrule(lr){4-5}
    Target Rate & Mean & Std. Dev & Mean & Std. Dev \\
    \midrule
    1Hz & 1.07 & 1.08 & 1.22 & 0.11 \\
    5Hz & 4.71 & 2.09 & 4.51 & 0.21 \\
    10Hz & 10.3 & 3.28  & 10.1 & 0.32 \\
    100Hz & 93.6 & 9.91 & 94.6 & 0.97 \\
    \bottomrule
  \end{tabular}
  \caption{Here is a caption}\label{tlc}
\end{table}
\end{document}

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 25 '18 at 17:48

3

I was using the longtable environment and got the \omit error message, too. In my case I had the caption/label integrated also in front of the table content. By integrating a \\ after the label command, the error message is avoided.

edited Apr 25 '18 at 17:48

Heiko Oberdiek

271,626

answered Apr 25 '18 at 13:57

DavidG

31

massi · Answer 3 · 2019-03-11T17:46:57.603

3

I stumbled in this problem too, and I solved it as I tried to create the MWE, so I am reporting for future references, maybe it's trivial, but sometimes you can miss it when you have big tables. I wanted to have the first row cells bold and centered, so I tried:

    \documentclass{article}
    \begin{document}
    \newcommand{\myh}[1]{\textbf{\multicolumn{1}{c}{#1}}}

    \begin{tabular}{|ccccc|}
    \myh{99} & \myh{4} & \myh{3} & \myh{2} & \myh{1}\\
    \end{tabular}
    \end{document}

The solution was:

    \newcommand{\myh}[1]{\multicolumn{1}{c}{\textbf{#1}}

That is: formatting inside multicolumn and not outside. Hope it helps.

edited Mar 11 '19 at 17:46

answered Mar 11 '19 at 17:05

massi

431

@egreg, you're right, I left it by mistake, when I was stripping the code to the bone. I am going to edit the comment – massi Mar 11 '19 at 17:45
Yes @massi, this helps! Thank you very much. – pdini Jun 21 '20 at 09:54

score 3 · Answer 4 · edited May 12 '23 at 07:21

Ensure you haven't redefined span! I had

\def\span#1{\ensuremath{\text{span}\left(#1\right)}}

in my preamble. Took me ages to figure it out.

For someone who needs to know how to get back the definition of span before the error,

% store default def of span
\let\oldspan\span
% redefine span for using in the whole document
\def\span...
% before the blocks in which you need the default def of span
\let\span\oldspan
% blocks need default span
% redefine span for the whole doc
\def\span...

"! Misplaced \omit" error

4 Answers4

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