109

I have table that has long headers and I would like to specify width of the column, but also be able to remain it's centred position.

Something like |c{0.30\textwidth}|.

It is possible? How to achieve this effect?

lockstep
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pixel
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    @lockstep : Why is this one marked as duplicate even though it was asked earlier than the question it allegedly duplicates? – ClintEastwood May 18 '17 at 18:38

2 Answers2

102

You could use the array package. It provides a way add a \centering command to a p-colum. Here's a tiny example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{>{\centering\arraybackslash}p{1cm}}
first row \\
second row
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

The general syntax is >{command} before the actual column specifier. \centering changes the meaning of \\, thus \arraybackslash has been used to restore that. Have a look at the array documentation to learn more.

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz
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Stefan Kottwitz
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  • I would add \hspace{0pt} to the column definition in order to allow the first word in a cell to be hyphenated. – lockstep Nov 06 '10 at 20:34
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    @lockstep: Good addition, because it's a general issue with narrow columns like chosen in the demo example. In that example code, >{\centering\arraybackslash\hspace{0pt}} would indeed result in a hyphenation. – Stefan Kottwitz Nov 06 '10 at 20:43
59

In addition to Stefans answer: If you use centered columns with a fixed width quite often, you can define a new column type:

\usepackage{array}
\newcolumntype{x}[1]{>{\centering\arraybackslash\hspace{0pt}}p{#1}}

The "x" column takes its width as argument. In your document, you would write e.g.

\begin{tabular}{cx{3cm}c}

EDIT: Thanks to an answer from Ulrike Fischer on the German-speaking forum mrunix.de, I learned that there is still room for improvement: One might want to manually break lines within a cell of a "centered" p-column, but \newline doesn't work correctly in this case. Solution: assign the meaning of \\ (as defined by \centering!) to \newline within the cell:

\usepackage{array}
\newcolumntype{x}[1]{>{\centering\let\newline\\\arraybackslash\hspace{0pt}}p{#1}}
lockstep
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    Hey, sorry for necroing this thread, but this doesn't work for me, for some reason. I get following error: Package array Error: Illegal pream-token (3 cm): `c' used. \end{tabularx} While this is my tabular environment definition: \begin{tabularx}{1\linewidth}{| R{0.3\linewidth} | C | C | C |} where R is basically the same as you have with \raggedleft instead of centering, and C the same as your "x" – Aeefire Jan 05 '15 at 13:18
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    @Aeefire maybe because C is already defined, try y instead. – user2987828 Dec 08 '21 at 14:28