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I have a table using the tabular environment:

\begin{table}[ht]
\centering
\begin{tabular}{c|cccccc}
& Landmarks in the Human Genome Project \\
\hline
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1953& Watson-Crick publish DNA structure & & & & & & \\
1975& F.Sanger, A.Maxam and W.Gilbert develop methods for sequencing DNA & & & & & & \\
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1977& Bacteriophage $\Phi X -174$ sequenced: first complete genome sequenced & & & & & & \\
1980& US Supreme court rules genetically modified bacteria are pantentable & & & & & & \\
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1981& Human mitochondrial DNA sequenced: $16569$ base pairs & & & & & & \\
1984& Epstein-Barr virus genome sequenced: 172,281 base pairs & & & & & &\\
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1990& International Human Genome Project launched & & & & & & \\
1991& J. Craig Venter identifies sequences of DNA complementary to messenger RNA & & & & & & \\
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1992& Complete low resolution linkage map of the human genome & & & & & & \\
1992& \textit{Caenorhabditis} sequencing project begins & & & & & & \\
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1992& J. Craig Venter forms the Institute for Genome Research (TIGR) & & & & & & \\
1992& Wellcome Trust and UK Medical Research Council establish The Sanger Center for large-scale genomic sequencing  & & & & & &\\
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1995& First complete sequence of bacterial genome, \textit{Haemophilus influenzae} by TIGR & & & & & & \\
1996& High resolution map of human genome & & & & & &\\
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1996& Completion of yeast genome, first eukaryotic genome sequence & & & & & & \\
1996& Celera claims to finish sequencing human genome by 2001, Wellcome Trust respond by increasing funding to the Sanger Center & & & & & &\\
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1998& \textit{Caenorhabdtis elegans} genome published & & & & & & \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

which runs fine, and appears in the document where I want it to, however when I add one or more items to the table, the table appears at the bottom of the document below the references. why is this? also i'm not sure how to parse latex code on here to show you the table - if anyone can show me how that would be great.

ShreevatsaR
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brucezepplin
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1 Answers1

1

Probably the quickest way to fix the issue of the float "floating" all the way to the back of the paper is to simply omit the h location specifier. If needs be, use the [t!] location specifier.

For much more on the topic of how LaTeX "decides" to place floats, see the posting How to influence the position of float environments like figure and table in LaTeX? and especially Frank Mittelbach's thorough answer.

Some additional comments about your table: There seem to be way more columns specified than are necessary. In fact, only two columns seem to be present. While nothing bad happens if you specify that the table should have about 10 columns, debugging tasks do become a lot more tedious the more columns are specified. By the way, instead of centering the contents of each column, you could left-align the text. And, consider using the tabularx environment and using the X column type for the second column to let long entries wrap as needed.

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[table,svgnames]{xcolor}
\usepackage{tabularx,ragged2e,booktabs}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}
\caption{Landmarks in the Human Genome Project}

\smallskip
\setlength\extrarowheight{1pt}
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{l>{\RaggedRight\arraybackslash}X}
\toprule
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1953& Watson and Crick publish DNA structure\\
1975& F. Sanger, A. Maxam and W. Gilbert develop methods for sequencing DNA\\
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1977& Bacteriophage $\Phi$ X-174 sequenced: first complete genome sequenced\\
1980& US Supreme court rules genetically modified bacteria are patentable\\
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1981& Human mitochondrial DNA sequenced: 16,569 base pairs\\
1984& Epstein-Barr virus genome sequenced: 172,281 base pairs\\
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1990& International Human Genome Project launched\\
1991& J. Craig Venter identifies sequences of DNA complementary to messenger RNA\\
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1992& Complete low resolution linkage map of the human genome\\
1992& \textit{Caenorhabditis} sequencing project begins\\
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1992& J. Craig Venter forms the Institute for Genome Research (TIGR)\\
1992& Wellcome Trust and UK Medical Research Council establish The Sanger Center for large-scale genomic sequencing \\
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1995& First complete sequence of bacterial genome, \textit{Haemophilus influenzae} by TIGR\\
1996& High resolution map of human genome\\
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1996& Completion of yeast genome, first eukaryotic genome sequence\\
1996& Celera claims to finish sequencing human genome by 2001, Wellcome Trust respond by increasing funding to the Sanger Center\\
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
1998& \textit{Caenorhabdtis elegans} genome published\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabularx}
\end{table}
\end{document}
Mico
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