Fancy tables in LaTeX

Question

I am terrible at LaTeX tables. I managed to produce a table, but it looks so basic. How do I make it fancier?

Here is the table's code:

\begin{table}
    \begin{tabular}{|l|l|l|l|l|}
         \hline
             Models    & A  & B  & C  & D  \\ \hline
             Model $X$ & X1 & X2 & X3 & X4 \\ \hline
             Model $Y$ & Y1 & Y2 & Y3 & Y4 \\
         \hline
    \end{tabular}
\end{table}

Wellcome to TeX SX! Please provide a Minimal Working Example (MWE). It is easier for people to run your document and help you. — TeXtnik, Jan 16 '13 at 08:51
I never try to make anything look fancy. I hope to always listen carefully to the information that I want to get across, and let it tell me how it needs to be presented. The only thing I don't like about your table are the vertical bars and horizontal bars, which don't really help. Use spacing instead of bars perhaps, like \\[3pt instead of \\ on the first line, and get rid of \hline and |. — Benjamin McKay, Jan 22 '13 at 10:21

score 27 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 16 '13 at 09:11

Besides using booktabs, you can use either colortbl or xcolor (with the option [table] to color the tables.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\usepackage{booktabs}
 \begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{*5l}    \toprule
\emph{name} & \emph{foo} &&&  \\\midrule
Models    & A  & B  & C  & D  \\ 
\rowcolor{blue!50} Model $X$ & X1 & X2 & X3 & X4\\ 
\rowcolor{green!50} Model $Y$ & Y1 & Y2 & Y3 & Y4\\\bottomrule
 \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

enter image description here

Another method is somewhat automatic:

\rowcolors{<starting row>}{<first color>}{<second color>}

MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\usepackage{booktabs}
 \begin{document}

\rowcolors{3}{green!25}{yellow!50}
\begin{tabular}{ *5l }    \toprule
\emph{name} & \emph{foo} &&&  \\\midrule
Models    & A  & B  & C  & D  \\ 
Model $X$ & X1 & X2 & X3 & X4\\ 
Model $Y$ & Y1 & Y2 & Y3 & Y4\\\bottomrule
 \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

enter image description here

Refer to the documentation of xcolor at texdoc.net for more details.

Thank you @Harish. It works in a separate document, but does not work in my own document even though I added the packages. It says "! LaTeX Error: Option clash for package xcolor". Any idea why? — Günal, Jan 16 '13 at 09:41
@Günal To prevent that add \PassOptionsToPackage{table}{xcolor} before \documentclass{article} and remove \usepackage[table]{xcolor}. This happens because some package you are using (may be tikz?) also loads xcolor but with different or no options. refer to this answer: http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/52978/11232 for some more details. — , Jan 16 '13 at 09:45

score 20 · Answer 2 · 2013-01-16T09:54:30.527

You shouldn't use vertical lines:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs}
 \begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{@{} *5l @{}}    \toprule
\emph{name} & \emph{foo} &&&  \\\midrule
Models    & A  & B  & C  & D  \\ 
 Model $X$ & X1 & X2 & X3 & X4\\ 
 Model $Y$ & Y1 & Y2 & Y3 & Y4\\\bottomrule
 \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

enter image description here

it is a bit tricky if one has on the left and right no \tabcolsep which looks better to me, but want to color the lines:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array,booktabs}
\newcolumntype{L}{@{}>{\kern\tabcolsep}l<{\kern\tabcolsep}}
\usepackage{colortbl}
\usepackage{xcolor}
 \begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{@{} l L L L @{} >{\kern\tabcolsep}l @{}}    \toprule
\emph{name} & \emph{foo} &&&  \\\midrule
Models    & A  & B  & C  & D  \\ 
\rowcolor{black!20}[0pt][0pt] Model $X$ & X1 & X2 & X3 & X4\\ 
\rowcolor{black!40}[0pt][0pt] Model $Y$ & Y1 & Y2 & Y3 & Y4\\\bottomrule
 \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

enter image description here

Thank you @Herbert. It looks brilliant. Can you please also tell me how to paint the rows? I want the colors of the rows Model X and Model Y to be different. — Günal, Jan 16 '13 at 08:54

score 16 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 30 '22 at 08:32

16

Use booktabs package. The documentation discuss how to produce nicer tables.

Don't use vertical lines
Don't use unnecessary horizontal lines
Take out the extra space at right and left of table with @{}

You can read more in this guide

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{@{} l *4c @{}}
\toprule
 \multicolumn{1}{c}{Models}    & A  & B  & C  & D  \ 
\midrule
 Model $X$ & X1 & X2 & X3 & X4 \ 
 Model $Y$ & Y1 & Y2 & Y3 & Y4 \ \bottomrule
 \end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}

enter image description here

edited Mar 30 '22 at 08:32

Community

1

answered Jan 16 '13 at 09:03

TeXtnik

5,853

my table ends up before my text with your solution – David 天宇 Wong Mar 10 '15 at 02:10
@David天宇Wong: Can you elaborate more the comment? This answer has nothing to do with the position of the table in the text. – TeXtnik Mar 10 '15 at 08:05
I removed \begin{table} and no problems – David 天宇 Wong Mar 11 '15 at 12:45
1

@David天宇Wong, table makes the tabular to float, so LaTeX place it where it thinks is better to pagniate the text. – TeXtnik Mar 12 '15 at 08:00

score 9 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 15 '17 at 20:50

+1 for the other answers- you can get some fancy input by using the pgfplotstable package

screenshot

You can colour the rows if you like- see the documentation for more details.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{pgfplotstable}

% global settings
\pgfplotstableset{
    every head row/.style={
    before row=\toprule,after row=\midrule},
    every last row/.style={
    after row=\bottomrule},
    col sep = &,
    row sep=\\,
    string type,
}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}
\pgfplotstabletypeset{
 Models    & A  & B  & C  & D  \\ 
 Model $X$ & X1 & X2 & X3 & X4 \\ 
 Model $Y$ & Y1 & Y2 & Y3 & Y4 \\
 Model $Z$ & Z1 & Z2 & Z3 & Z4 \\
}
\end{table}

\end{document}

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 30 '22 at 09:17

Just for fun, a proposal using the excellent tabularray package.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\pagestyle{empty}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{tabularray}
\UseTblrLibrary{booktabs}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}
  \caption{Example of table with \texttt{tabularray}.}
  \label{tab:example}
  \centering
  \begin{tblr}{
      colspec={lllll},
      row{1}={font=\bfseries},
      column{1}={font=\itshape},
      row{even}={bg=gray!10},
    }
              & A  & B  & C  & D  \\
    \toprule
    Model $X$ & X1 & X2 & X3 & X4 \\
    Model $Y$ & Y1 & Y2 & Y3 & Y4 \\
    Model $Z$ & Z1 & Z2 & Z3 & Z4 \\
    \bottomrule
  \end{tblr}
\end{table}
\end{document}

Fancy tables in LaTeX

5 Answers5

Linked