How to make a table look nicer

Question

I am currently working on my master thesis and my tables which are used as a type of matrix simply look awful. How can i make them look much better?

\begin{table}[H]
    \centering
    \begin{tabular}{c|c|c|c|c}
        &\textgreater& =+ & =- & \textless \\
        \hline
        \textgreater & 1 & 0 & 0 & -1 \\
        \hline
        =+ & 0 & 1 & 0 & 0 \\
        \hline
        =- & 0 & 0 & 1 & 0 \\
        \hline
        \textless & -1 & 0 & 0 & 1 \\
        \hline
    \end{tabular}
\end{table}

enter image description here

The width of the cells are not consistent and the chars are differing in size, basically i want this to look better. My other solution is to make it in Photoshop, but id prefer to do it in LaTeX. — JavaCake, Sep 13 '14 at 16:24

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 13 '14 at 16:31

6

While beauty is in the eye of the beerholder, here is one option:

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array}
\newcolumntype{C}[1]{>{\centering\arraybackslash$}p{#1}<{$}}
\begin{document}

\[
  \begin{array}{c| *{4}{C{2em}}}
    & \multicolumn{1}{c}{>} & =\joinrel+ & =\joinrel- & \multicolumn{1}{c}{<} \\
    \hline
    > & \phantom{-}1 & 0 & 0 & -1 \\
    =\joinrel+ & \phantom{-}0 & 1 & 0 & \phantom{-}0 \\
    =\joinrel- & \phantom{-}0 & 0 & 1 & \phantom{-}0 \\
    < & -1 & 0 & 0 & \phantom{-}1
  \end{array}
\]

\end{document}

answered Sep 13 '14 at 16:31

Werner

603,163

You may have better off right justifying the first and last columns. – John Kormylo Sep 13 '14 at 16:35
+1 for beerholder (and the technical merits of the answer, of course). – Paul Gessler Sep 13 '14 at 16:44
It's easier to use \llap or \rlap to align the columns, in my opinion. – 1010011010 Sep 13 '14 at 17:18
One last thing, how do i make lines in between all the cells, except the math signs on the outside? – JavaCake Sep 13 '14 at 17:47
I suggest adding a little more air between the rows. – Sveinung Sep 13 '14 at 17:51
For vertical padding, use \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{<num>}, as suggested in Column and row padding in tables. – Werner Sep 13 '14 at 19:46

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 13 '14 at 19:09

Here is somme more air, and no \phantom, with the siunitx package. Some colour, and different widths horizontal and vertical rule:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage[x11names]{xcolor}
\usepackage{colortbl}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\usepackage{makecell}
\renewcommand\theadfont{\color{LightSteelBlue3}\mathversion{bold}}
\setcellgapes{5pt}
\makegapedcells
\begin{document}

\[\setlength\arraycolsep{1em}\arrayrulecolor{Tomato3}\setlength\arrayrulewidth{0.8pt}
  \begin{array}{ @{}>{\color{LightSteelBlue3}\mathversion{bold}}c@{\quad}!{\color{Tomato3}\vrule width 1.2pt}*{4}{S[table-format = 1.0]}}
   & {\thead{>}} & {\thead{=\joinrel+}} & {\thead{=\joinrel-}} & {\thead{<}} \\[-1ex]
    \hline
    > & -1 & 0 & 0 & -1 \\
    =\joinrel+ & 0 & 1 & 0 & 0 \\
    =\joinrel- & 0 & 0 & 1 & 0 \\
    < & -1 & 0 & 0 & 1 \\[-2ex]
 &
  \end{array}
\]

\end{document}

enter image description here

When i include siunitx i get some conflict with sistyle apparently: Package 'sistyle' incompatible — JavaCake, Sep 14 '14 at 07:00
@JavaCake: I never used sistyle. As far as I know, it is no more developed and is superseded by siunitx. — Bernard, Sep 14 '14 at 09:31

score 2 · Answer 3 · edited Sep 13 '14 at 17:47

2

Usine memoir class you can also do as shown below

\documentclass{memoir}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}[H]
      \begin{tabular*}{0.95\textwidth}{@{\extracolsep{\fill}}l|rrrr}
    \toprule
           &  \textgreater& \textbf{ =+}  & \textbf{=-} & \textbf{\textless} \\
     \midrule
       \textgreater & \textbf {1} & \textbf{0} & \textbf{0} & \textbf{ -1}\\
       =+ &\textbf{ 0} &\textbf{1} & \textbf{0} & \textbf{0} \\
       =- &\textbf{ 0} & \textbf{0} & \textbf{1}&\textbf{ 0} \\
      \textless &\textbf{ -1} & \textbf{0} &\textbf{0} &\textbf{1}\\
        \bottomrule
    \end{tabular*}
  \end{table}
\end{document}

output:

beautytbl

edited Sep 13 '14 at 17:47

egreg

1,121,712

answered Sep 13 '14 at 17:37

murugan

1,669

4

The - symbols -- in the header row and column as well as in the body of the table -- really ought to be rendered as typographic minus signs rather than as the much shorter typographic dash (aka hyphen) characters. Also, if you're going to use the macros of the booktabs package, don't use vertical lines in the table; conversely, if you really must use vertical bars, don't use the macros of the booktabs package. Incidentally, why did you encase the contents of every single cell in a \textbf "wrapper"? – Mico Sep 13 '14 at 18:09

How to make a table look nicer

3 Answers3