Equivalent to graphicx draft/demo option for tables

Question

I am looking for a way to exclude tables from compilation when I am in draft mode (technically I want to create a boolean such as drafttables that would exclude tables when active). Usually I have tables in a separate file at the end of the document and just exclude it from compilation while working on the document. But now I need to put many many tables inside the document as floats, and because the tables are rather complicated, compilation takes a long time.

Is it possible to create a macro that just puts a placeholder instead of the table, similar to the option of the graphicx package? A bonus would be if the placeholder would have similar dimensions as the table, so that the layout stays the same.

Answer 1

I've borrowed some work from Draft mode for pgfplots in the solution below.

If you use

\documentclass[draft]{article}

then all the tables will not appear. If you use

\documentclass{article}

then they'll appear as usual.

I've used the verbatim package just for the comment environment.

Measuring the dimensions of the table would be tricky- perhaps this will help someone go in that direction.

%\documentclass{article}
\documentclass[draft]{article}
\usepackage{verbatim}

\makeatletter
\@tempswafalse
\def\@tempa{draft}
\@for\next:=\@classoptionslist\do
  {\ifx\next\@tempa\@tempswatrue\fi}
\if@tempswa % draft option is active
    \renewenvironment{table}{\comment}{\endcomment}
    \fi
\makeatother

\begin{document}

hello world

\begin{table}[!htb]
    \begin{minipage}{.5\textwidth}
        \centering
        \caption{}
        \label{tab:first}
        \begin{tabular}{rcl}
            right & center & left \\
            right & center & left 
        \end{tabular}
    \end{minipage}%
    \begin{minipage}{.5\textwidth}
        \centering
        \caption{}
        \label{tab:second}
        \begin{tabular}{rcl}
            right & center & left \\
            right & center & left 
        \end{tabular}
    \end{minipage}
\end{table}


\end{document}

Alternative

Or else you might prefer to load tikz or pgf and then use the following in the \ifdraft check

\renewenvironment{tabular}{%
\pgfpicture\pgfpathrectanglecorners{\pgfpointorigin}{\pgfpoint{3cm}{3cm}}%
     \pgfusepath{stroke}\endpgfpicture%
\comment}{\endcomment}

which gives

Answer 2

cmhughes answer made me realise that any form of "automatic" table size recognition is just overkill. First, my tables are usually textwidth-wide, hence there is not a massive variation in size. Second, even if the size is a few cm's longer or shorter it does not really matter. So my strategy is as follows:

• Create a new ifnotables conditional that can be activated by the documentclass via notables
• Create a few predefined empty tables: \fulltable is on a extra page float, \halftable is half the size...\thirdtable, \quartertable etc.

The table can then be set by \ifnotables{\halftable}{\begin{tabular}...\end{tabular}. The advantage is that, when set in a table float, captions, labels etc. remain the same which allows for a decent layout: only the actual table is missing.

\documentclass[%
notables
]{article}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{booktabs,lmodern}

\makeatletter
% Provide new conditionals
\newif\if@notables
\DeclareOption{notables}{%
  \@notablestrue
}
\ProcessOptions*\relax
\newcommand*{\ifnotables}{%
  \if@notables
    \expandafter\@firstoftwo
  \else
    \expandafter\@secondoftwo
  \fi
}
\makeatother

% create dummy tables
\newcommand{\fulltable}{%
 \begin{tabular*}{\textwidth}{c@{\extracolsep{\fill}}l}
  \hspace{-.5em}\pgfpicture\pgfpathrectanglecorners{\pgfpointorigin}{\pgfpoint{\textwidth}{23cm}}%
  \pgfusepath{stroke}\endpgfpicture%
 \end{tabular*}
}
\newcommand{\halftable}{%
 \begin{tabular*}{\textwidth}{c@{\extracolsep{\fill}}l}
  \hspace{-.5em}\pgfpicture\pgfpathrectanglecorners{\pgfpointorigin}{\pgfpoint{\textwidth}{11.5cm}}%
  \pgfusepath{stroke}\endpgfpicture%
 \end{tabular*}
}
\newcommand{\thirdtable}{%
 \begin{tabular*}{\textwidth}{c@{\extracolsep{\fill}}l}
  \hspace{-.5em}\pgfpicture\pgfpathrectanglecorners{\pgfpointorigin}{\pgfpoint{\textwidth}{7cm}}%
  \pgfusepath{stroke}\endpgfpicture%
 \end{tabular*}
}
\newcommand{\quartertable}{%
 \begin{tabular*}{\textwidth}{c@{\extracolsep{\fill}}l}
  \hspace{-.5em}\pgfpicture\pgfpathrectanglecorners{\pgfpointorigin}{\pgfpoint{\textwidth}{5cm}}%
  \pgfusepath{stroke}\endpgfpicture%
 \end{tabular*}
}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}[!htb]
\centering
\caption{First table}
\label{tab:first}
        \ifnotables{\thirdtable}{%
         \begin{tabular*}{\textwidth}{c@{\extracolsep{\fill}}ccc}
         \toprule
            right & center & left \\
            right & center & left \\
            right & center & left \\
            right & center & left \\
            right & center & left \\
            right & center & left \\
            right & center & left \\
            right & center & left \\
            right & center & left \\
            right & center & left \\
            right & center & left \\
            right & center & left \\
        \bottomrule
        \end{tabular*}
       }
\end{table}

\begin{table}[!b]
\centering
\caption{Second table}
\label{tab:second}
        \ifnotables{\quartertable}{%
        \begin{tabular*}{\textwidth}{c@{\extracolsep{\fill}}ccc}
        \toprule
            right & center & left \\
            right & center & left \\
            right & center & left \\
            right & center & left \\
        \bottomrule
        \end{tabular*}
       }
\end{table}

\end{document}

The size of the dummies can of course be fine tuned. I usually have my tables stored in separate tex files, hence by creating a command such as:

\usepackage{etoolbox}
\newcommand{\mytable}[2][]{%
 \ifstrempty{#1}{%
  \input{#2}
  }{%
  \ifnotables{#1}{\input{#2}}%  
 }
}

I can make the code in the float tidier and the specification of a dummy table is optional:

\begin{table}[!htb]
\centering
\caption{First table}
\label{tab:first}
   \mytable[\halftable]{table2}
\end{table}