As indicated in Scale tikz figure to a percentage of \textwidth I was expecting this to work:
\documentclass{memoir}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{matrix,positioning}
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
\resizebox{0.5\textwidth}{!}{%
\begin{tikzpicture}
\matrix(Person) [matrix of nodes,
matrix/.style={rows={1}{fill=gray}},
label=above:Person,
column 1/.style={nodes={text width=1cm, align=center}},
column 2/.style={nodes={text width=2cm}},
column 3/.style={nodes={text width=2.5cm}},
column 4/.style={nodes={text width=2cm}},
column 5/.style={nodes={text width=2cm, align=center}}
] {
id & name & address & birth date & occupation.id \\
1 & Mary Smith & Main street 1 & 1970-04-17 & 1 \\
2 & John Doe & Highway 2 & 1972-07-24 & 1 \\
3 & Clara Doe & Highway 2 & 1995-11-11 & 2 \\};
\end{tikzpicture}
}
\end{figure}
\end{document}
However, it gives me:
! Undefined control sequence.
<argument> \pgf@matrix@last@nextcell@options
l.24 }
?
What am I doing wrong?

\matrixyou get the more informative! Package pgf Error: Single ampersand used with wrong catcode.Look forampersand replacementin the manual. – egreg Jul 23 '14 at 14:52pgfmanual. Section 20.5 of the current version. But I am not able to generate the error message noted by egreg either. – Paul Gessler Jul 23 '14 at 15:05