Dealing with many tables on small space

Question

I’m trying create a small and handy summary of rules for a pen and paper RPG (a game master screen). So I have to deal with lots of small paragraphs and tables. My goal is to get much information on a few sheets of paper – as clearly arranged as possible.

I prefer scrartcl as documentclass (using DIV=15 for smaller margins). At the moment most of my tables (code below).

I’d like to arrange all of the slim tables in two columns (using e.g. multicol) on the paper to get as many tables as possible on each sheet (but there are also wider ones). This is a screenshot of a comparable word document

which shows roughly what I’d expect of my TeX output.

Any ideas how I can arrange the tables in a nice-looking and space-saving manner? I think floating tables are not useful here. And there is a limit of floating tables per page, iirc.

Which table environment(s) suit best to my needs and/or is there a "clever" way to handle those tables by creating an own environment? Sorry for being unspecific, but maybe someone else tried to create a "cheat sheet" like this with latex.

tl;dr: I need lots of tables and \paragraphs to fit well-arranged on less paper. Think of a cheat sheet for school, but nice looking and clear.

Here you’ve got an cleaned up TeX-file to get an idea of what my document looks like:

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt,DIV=15]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{booktabs, longtable, multicol}

\title{Game Master Screen }
\begin{document}

\maketitle

\section{Fighting}

\begin{multicols}{2}

\subsection{Melee}
\paragraph{important rule} short explanation, just one to three sentences.
\paragraph{useful rule} short explanation, just one to three sentences.
\paragraph{not useful rule} short explanation, just one to three sentences. Short explanation, just one to three sentences. 

\subsection{Special Maneuvers}
\paragraph{disarming} short explanation, just one to three sentences.
\paragraph{another one} is eplained in tab.\,\ref{tab:extab}.
\paragraph{yet another one} is eplained somewhere else in very short sentences.

\end{multicols}

\begin{table}
\caption{Example Table\label{tab:extab}}
\begin{longtable}{lllp{6cm}}
\toprule
Talent & AU & WV & Anmerkungen \\ 
\midrule
Raufen  &  1W & 2/0 &
           keine besonderen Kampfmanöver;
           gute AT: echte SP oder W6\,KR kampfunfähig \\ 

Boxen   &  1W & 2/0  &
           KK-14; bei 6 +1W, wieder 6: für 1W20\,KR
           kampfunfähig\\ 

Ringen  &  1W & 2/0 &
           AT gelungen: Wurf, 1W6 SP, 1\,KR kampfunfähig
           \emph{oder}
           Würgegriff (kein Schaden), dann AT-2 und PA+2
           (gelungen: 1W SP), anschließend +/-3 usw.;
           Kein RS! \\ 

Hruruzat & 2W & 3/1 &
           KK-15; bei Pasch +2W SP  \\ 

gegen Bewaffnete      & \ldots & \ldots &
           nur Ausweichen, AT erst möglich, wenn Gegners AT
           misslingt; wenn Gegner Pariert, dann SP durch dessen
           Waffe \\
\bottomrule
\end{longtable} 
\end{table}

\section{Magic}

More text and tables go here.


\end{document}

Answer 1

I take a somewhat different approach from you, but here's some initial code. I'll update this as I get something that looks closer to what you posted.

I've not filled the page with tables, but that is certainly possible. Once you've made all your tables, it's just a matter of finding the right order to list them to fill the page.

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt,twocolumn,landscape]{scrartcl}
%% make the margins small, but this will leave very little room
%% for printing a title.
\usepackage[margin=1cm]{geometry}
%% You want to economize on space.  Let's not waste it on indenting
%% paragraphs particularly since, visually, you don't really have any.
\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}
%% your fonts and other packages
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
%% setting up to use alternate shading of rows of your tables
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\colorlet{altrowcolor}{gray!20}
\colorlet{tableheadcolor}{gray!50}
%% Allows your tables to fit to the width of the line they're contained in
%% use column type "X" to indicate the column that will expand to help fit 
%% to line.  "X" is automatically converted to column type "p" once the 
%% best fit has been found.
\usepackage{tabularx}
%% packages for this demonstration purpose only
\pagestyle{empty}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
  \rowcolors{0}{altrowcolor}{white}
  \begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{|Xcccp{5cm}c|}\hline
    \multicolumn{6}{|>{\columncolor{tableheadcolor}}c|}{ Title for this table}\\
    Some texts     & 3 & 4 & 599 & NA, MP, OK, RP, ST, NA & $10+$ \\
    Longer Content & 3 & 4 & 599 & NA, MP, OK,            & $10+$ \\
    Some texts     & 3 & 4 & 599 & NA, MP, OK,            & $10+$ \\
    Some texts     & 3 & 4 & 599 & NA, MP, OK,            & $10+$ \\
    Some texts     & 3 & 4 & 599 & NA, MP, OK,            & $10+$ \\
    Some texts     & 3 & 4 & 599 & NA, MP, OK,            & $10+$ \\\hline
  \end{tabularx}

    \vspace{1ex}

  \rowcolors{0}{altrowcolor}{white}
  \begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{|lX|}\hline
    \multicolumn{2}{|>{\columncolor{tableheadcolor}}c|}{ Title for second table}\\
    some category     & much longer content that may need to be wrapped around and continue on a second line. \\
    another category  & but we can have short lines too \\
    a third category  & random content that doesn't have to fill the line or wrap \\
    a fourth category & random content that doesn't have to fill the line or wrap \\
    a fifth category  & random content that doesn't have to fill the line or wrap \\\hline
  \end{tabularx}
  \vspace{1ex}

  \begin{tabularx}{0.5\linewidth-1em}[t]{|X|c|c|c|}\hline
    initial content & col 1 & col 2 & col 3 \\\hline
    initial content & col 1 & col 2 & col 3 \\\hline
    initial content & col 1 & col 2 & col 3 \\\hline
    initial content & col 1 & col 2 & col 3 \\\hline
    initial content & col 1 & col 2 & col 3 \\\hline
  \end{tabularx}\hspace*{1em}%
  {\begin{minipage}[t]{0.5\linewidth}\raggedright{}
    \textbf{Here is some text set next to a table} Lorem ipsum dolor sit
    amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Ut purus elit, vestibulum ut, placerat
    ac, adipiscing vitae, felis. Curabitur dictum gravida mauris. Nam arcu
    libero, nonummy eget, consectetuer id, vulputate a, magna. Donec vehicula
    augue eu neque. Pel- lentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus
  \end{minipage}}

  \vspace{\fill}

\pagebreak

  \rowcolors{0}{altrowcolor}{white}
  \begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{|X|}\hline
    \multicolumn{1}{|>{\columncolor{tableheadcolor}}c|}{Title for third table}
    \\
    {\let\par\relax\lipsum[1]} \\
    {\let\par\relax\lipsum[2]} \\\hline
  \end{tabularx}

  \vspace{1ex}

  Create a table with shaded in cells.  There is probably a much better way to make this table
  than what I've done.  In particular, the \verb=\cNam= command is only just a hack to make the columns look nicer.

  \vspace{1ex}

  \newcommand{\mtcc}{\cellcolor{gray!20}}%%empty-cell-content
  \newcommand{\cNam}[1]{\hspace*{0.65em}#1\hspace*{0.65em}}%%             column name
  \rowcolors{0}{white}{white}
  \begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{|X|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|}\hline
    \multicolumn{10}{|>{\columncolor{tableheadcolor}}c|}{ Title for fourth table}\\\hline
    Col Titles      & \cNam{A} & \cNam{B} & C\cNam{C} & \cNam{D} & \cNam{E} & \cNam{F} & \cNam{G} & \cNam{H} & \cNam{I}   \\\hline
    id for this row & 23       & 43       & 54        & 340      & 23       & 43       & 54       & 340      & 23  \\\hline
    id for this row & \mtcc    & 43       & 54        & 340      & 23       & 43       & 54       & 340      & 23  \\\hline
    id for this row & \mtcc    & \mtcc    & 54        & 340      & 23       & 43       & 54       & 340      & 23  \\\hline
    id for this row & \mtcc    & \mtcc    & \mtcc     & 340      & 23       & 43       & 54       & 340      & 23  \\\hline
    id for this row & \mtcc    & \mtcc    & \mtcc     & \mtcc    & 23       & 43       & 54       & 340      & 23  \\\hline
    id for this row & \mtcc    & \mtcc    & \mtcc     & \mtcc    & \mtcc    & 43       & 54       & 340      & 23  \\\hline
    id for this row & \mtcc    & \mtcc    & \mtcc     & \mtcc    & \mtcc    & \mtcc    & 54       & 340      & 23  \\\hline
    id for this row & \mtcc    & \mtcc    & \mtcc     & \mtcc    & \mtcc    & \mtcc    & \mtcc    & 340      & 23  \\\hline
    id for this row & \mtcc    & \mtcc    & \mtcc     & \mtcc    & \mtcc    & \mtcc    & \mtcc    & \mtcc    & 23  \\\hline
  \end{tabularx}

\end{document}