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I'm trying to fit tables to page-width that I include in the .tex document via the /input method. I'm doing this because I'm exporting tables from Stata to Latex with the estout methods, and include these tables into my document. However, some tables are too wide and I'd like to scale them down to make them fit.

I think this question is different from many questions that ask to fit tables because I'm calling the table through the /input{} method. However, I'm a beginner in Latex and might just not have tried the right things yet.

Ideally, i don't want to change the stata latex output manually but rather have either a) some option in Stata estout or b) some latex code in the main document.

Thanks in advance for any help!

The main document:

\documentclass[•]{article}
\usepackage{booktabs}

\begin{document}

\input{tables/desstat_behav_corr}

\end{document}

And the input document:

\begin{table}[htbp]
\centering 
\caption{Pairwise correlations of behavioural variables}
\begin{tabular*}{\textwidth}{@{\hskip\tabcolsep\extracolsep\fill}l*{8}{c}} 
\toprule &\multicolumn{8}{c}{}   \\
      &  ceo\_age&   cfo\_age&CapIQ\_CEOfixed\_to\_total&CapIQ\_CEObonus\_to\_total&CapIQ\_CEOlongterm\_to\_total&CapIQ\_CFOfixed\_to\_total&CapIQ\_CFObonus\_to\_total&CapIQ\_CFOlongterm\_to\_total\\
\midrule
ceo\_age   &        1&         &         &         &         &         &         &          \\
cfo\_age   &    0.260&        1&         &         &         &         &         &         \\
CapIQ\_CEOfixed\_to\_total&   0.0202&  -0.0563&        1&         &         &         &         &         \\
CapIQ\_CEObonus\_to\_total&   0.0323&   0.0844&   -0.442&        1&         &         &         &         \\
CapIQ\_CEOlongterm\_to\_total&  0.00911&   0.0740&   -0.316&   0.0130&        1&         &         &         \\
CapIQ\_CFOfixed\_to\_total&  -0.0748&  -0.0879&    0.673&   -0.308&   -0.279&        1&         &         \\
CapIQ\_CFObonus\_to\_total&   0.0708&   0.0534&   -0.380&    0.794&  -0.0360&   -0.361&        1&         \\
CapIQ\_CFOlongterm\_to\_total&   0.0766&   0.0395&   -0.318&  -0.0245&    0.814&   -0.325&  -0.0415&        1\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular*}
\end{table}
Troy
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Yimmer
  • 219
  • Try \resizebox from the graphix package. Whether or not you use \input is irrelevant. – John Kormylo Nov 18 '13 at 22:02
  • Thanks for the tip. However, when I use 
    \resizebox{8cm}{!}{\input...}}

    I get the error message:

    #1 Latex error: not in outer par mode #2 Undefined control sequence #3 Missing number, treated as zero

    How do I use it correctly?

     – Yimmer Nov 18 '13 at 22:37
  • Any resizing cannot be done on the outside of table since that is a float. It must be done on the tabular. Also, I recommend the use of tabular not tabular*, since the latter will limit the rules to the \textwidth but not the tabular contents. – Steven B. Segletes Nov 18 '13 at 22:51
  • Also, your column headings are so large compared to the numerical data of the columns, that the shrinkage necessary to make it fit into the text width is about a 70% reduction, making the table illegible. You really need an alternate approach, such as eliminating the CapIQ_CFO text from each entry. – Steven B. Segletes Nov 18 '13 at 22:56
  • Yes, I will change the names. But leaving this aside, is there a method to scale the table down without touching the code in the /input section? 'tabular*' is generated automatically by the Stata export command so I prefer not to touch it just to reduce work. – Yimmer Nov 18 '13 at 23:22

1 Answers1

1

This answer is meant to address the follow-up question in the comments section on "is there a method to scale the table down without touching the code in the /input section? 'tabular*' is generated automatically by the Stata export command". It may or may not be compatible with what the OP is trying to accomplish.

First, let me reiterate the disclaimers:

1) The table is poorly conceptualized, because of the excessive width of the column headers;

2) if one wishes to scale a table, one should use tabular, rather than tabular* because the tabular* has no idea, in advance, if the table is oversized, and will not provide an acceptable output is scaling is required;

3) Any scaling can only be done on the inner tabular part of the table, and not on the table itself, because table is a float and cannot be scaled as an object.

That said, what I do here is wrap the tabular in a macro that I call \totextwidth which will scale the tabular (either scale down or leave alone) to fit \textwidth. I use the floating point fp package to calculate the scale factor, and use \scalebox of the graphicx package to resize the tabular. It uses an egreg trick to place lengths into count registers.

I have verified that this approach works if you stick the part between \begin{table} and \end{table} into a separate file and use \input. EDITED to not scale narrow tables up to \textwidth, but only to scale wide tables down to \textwidth.

\documentclass[•]{article}
\usepackage{fp}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\newsavebox\mytabularbox
\newcount\figwidthc
\newcount\textwidthc

\newcommand\totextwidth[1]{%
  \sbox{\mytabularbox}{#1}%
  \figwidthc=\wd\mytabularbox%
  \textwidthc=\textwidth%
  \FPdiv\scaleratio{\the\textwidthc}{\the\figwidthc}%
  \FPmin\scaleratio{\scaleratio}{1}%
  \scalebox{\scaleratio}{\usebox{\mytabularbox}}%
}
\begin{document}

%\input{tables/desstat_behav_corr}
\begin{table}[htbp]
\centering 
\caption{Pairwise correlations of behavioural variables}
\totextwidth{%
\begin{tabular}{@{\hskip\tabcolsep\extracolsep\fill}l*{8}{c}} 
\toprule &\multicolumn{8}{c}{}   \\
      &  ceo\_age&   cfo\_age&CapIQ\_CEOfixed\_to\_total&CapIQ\_CEObonus\_to\_total&CapIQ\_CEOlongterm\_to\_total&CapIQ\_CFOfixed\_to\_total&CapIQ\_CFObonus\_to\_total&CapIQ\_CFOlongterm\_to\_total\\
\midrule
ceo\_age   &        1&         &         &         &         &         &         &          \\
cfo\_age   &    0.260&        1&         &         &         &         &         &         \\
CapIQ\_CEOfixed\_to\_total&   0.0202&  -0.0563&        1&         &         &         &         &         \\
CapIQ\_CEObonus\_to\_total&   0.0323&   0.0844&   -0.442&        1&         &         &         &         \\
CapIQ\_CEOlongterm\_to\_total&  0.00911&   0.0740&   -0.316&   0.0130&        1&         &         &         \\
CapIQ\_CFOfixed\_to\_total&  -0.0748&  -0.0879&    0.673&   -0.308&   -0.279&        1&         &         \\
CapIQ\_CFObonus\_to\_total&   0.0708&   0.0534&   -0.380&    0.794&  -0.0360&   -0.361&        1&         \\
CapIQ\_CFOlongterm\_to\_total&   0.0766&   0.0395&   -0.318&  -0.0245&    0.814&   -0.325&  -0.0415&        1\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}%
}
\end{table}

\begin{table}[htbp]
\centering
\caption{Narrow table}
\totextwidth{%
\begin{tabular}{|c|}
\hline
Narrow table\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
}%
\end{table}

\end{document}

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Steven B. Segletes
  • 237,551