booktabs with custom column spacing

Question

I'm trying to use the booktabs package, and I'm trying to make tables with "column groups" that are delimited by extra space. In the following, I am doing this using the @{} syntax in the tabular environment header. Unfortunately, however, this seems to ruin the alignment of the multicolumns and the cmidrules. Any ideas how I can fix this?

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}
 \centering
 \begin{tabular}{cc @{\hskip 4\tabcolsep}
    *{2}{c} @{\hskip 4\tabcolsep}
    *{2}{c} @{\hskip 4\tabcolsep}
    *{2}{c} }
  \toprule
  & & \multicolumn{2}{c}{A} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{B} &  
\multicolumn{2}{c}{C}\\
  \cmidrule(lr){3-4} \cmidrule(lr){5-6}
\cmidrule(lr){7-8}
  & D & E & F & E & F & E & F\\
  \midrule
  G    & 4.6 & 1.7 & 0.35 & 0.30 & 0.5 & 0.21 & 0.24\\
  H    & 6.5 & 2.7 & 1.4  & 1.2  & 1.3  & 0.30 & 5\\
  I    & 8.7 & 7.3 & 4.6  & 8.5  & 89.3  & 3.7  & 2\\
  J    & 1.4  & 13  & 9.7  & 13   & 8.7  & 8.2   & 4\\
  K    & 5 & 2  & 85   & 18   & 74   & 2.9   & 0.24\\
  \bottomrule
  \end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}

rather than altering the column width, I could also use phantom columns, but they seem a little wide and I run into the same problem of adjusting individual column widths — Patrick, Mar 15 '13 at 18:38

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 15 '17 at 12:45

4

Two things help, in conjunction:

Adjusting the header of \multicolumns to @{}c@{\hskip 4\tabcolsep} --- this deals with the alignment
Adjusting the right trim of \cmidline: (lr{\dimexpr 4\tabcolsep+0.5em}) --- this deals with line lengths

The full code of the upper part of the table is thus:

  \toprule
  & & \multicolumn{2}{@{}c@{\hskip 4\tabcolsep}}{A} & \multicolumn{2}{@{}c@{\hskip 4\tabcolsep}}{B} &  
\multicolumn{2}{c}{C}\\
  \cmidrule(lr{\dimexpr 4\tabcolsep+0.5em}){3-4} \cmidrule(lr{\dimexpr 4\tabcolsep+0.5em}){5-6}
\cmidrule(lr){7-8}
  & D & E & F & E & F & E & F\\
  \midrule

I suspect you will want to further tweak the line lenghts and/or use decimal point alignment...

edited Jul 15 '17 at 12:45

Moriambar

11,466

answered Mar 15 '13 at 18:55

Sašo Živanović

11,732

Thanks, that works like a charm! You are right, though, I needed to tweak the lines a bit. Decimal point alignment would be nice, would this cause problems in the alignment? – Patrick Mar 15 '13 at 19:51
Glad to hear this! ---I don't think it would. – Sašo Živanović Mar 15 '13 at 21:44
According to this answer, you should never use \hskip in LaTeX code. Use \hspace{4\tabcolsep} here. – moi Mar 05 '21 at 14:46

booktabs with custom column spacing

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