Vertical spacing options in tables built under the tabularx package

Question

Goals:

Add a space above and below the text line containing the Table 1's column headers.
Add a space below the second hline.
Add a space above the third hline.

The code below contains the original table (#1) along with several failed attempts (#2,#3,#4)to accomplish the above mentioned goals.

Additional details:

I am using pdflatex to render the .tex file
I am using the tabularx package.
I am using xtable() in R to build the .tex for these tables, but it's not necessary to answer the question with xtable options since I can edit the .tex after using R.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Suggestions?

enter image description here

%%%%%%%%%%
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage[sc]{mathpazo}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{geometry}
\usepackage[labelfont=sf,hypcap=false,format=hang,width=1\columnwidth]{caption}
\geometry{verbose,tmargin=2.5cm,bmargin=2.5cm,lmargin=3cm,rmargin=3cm}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage{array}
\begin{document}
%%%%%%%%%%

\title{Understanding Tables: Vertical Spacing}
\author{Brian}
\maketitle
This report is designed to be a quick resource for editing the vertical spacing in 'tabularx' tables. \\

\begin{table}[ht]
\captionof{table}{Original}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{lrrrrrr}
  \hline
Type & Total & Mean & Median & Stdev & Min & Max \\
  \hline
Test1 & 490 &  15 &   8 &  24 &   1 & 115 \\
  Test2 & 52610 & 1697 & 1620 & 430 & 920 & 2850 \\
   \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

{\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{2}%
\begin{table}[ht]
\captionof{table}{Spaceing stretched above and below ALL cells}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{lrrrrrr}
  \hline
Type & Total & Mean & Median & Stdev & Min & Max \\
  \hline
Test1 & 490 &  15 &   8 &  24 &   1 & 115 \\
  Test2 & 52610 & 1697 & 1620 & 430 & 920 & 2850 \\
   \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}}

\begin{table}[ht]
\captionof{table}{Spacing streched ABOVE header}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{lrrrrrr}
  \hline
\rule{0pt}{4ex}Type & Total & Mean & Median & Stdev & Min & Max \\
  \hline
Test1 & 490 &  15 &   8 &  24 &   1 & 115 \\
  Test2 & 52610 & 1697 & 1620 & 430 & 920 & 2850 \\
   \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}


\begin{table}[ht]
\captionof{table}{Spacing streched ABOVE ALL cells}
\centering
\setlength\extrarowheight{14pt}
\begin{tabular}{lrrrrrr}
  \hline
Type & Total & Mean & Median & Stdev & Min & Max \\
  \hline
Test1 & 490 &  15 &   8 &  24 &   1 & 115 \\
  Test2 & 52610 & 1697 & 1620 & 430 & 920 & 2850 \\
   \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{document}

Generic ways of padding columns/rows in LaTeX is provided in Column and row padding in tables. I'm sure you'll be able to find your answer there. — Werner, Dec 15 '14 at 23:09
Thanks but that resource was used in the question asked above. Here are some other related resources used: 1, 2, 3 — blehman, Dec 15 '14 at 23:31

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 15 '14 at 23:36

Your approach here (in terms of horizontal rules) matches that of what is suggested by booktabs. Here's what I would use:

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[sc]{mathpazo}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{geometry}
\usepackage[labelfont=sf,hypcap=false,format=hang,width=\columnwidth]{caption}
\geometry{verbose,tmargin=2.5cm,bmargin=2.5cm,lmargin=3cm,rmargin=3cm}
\usepackage{tabularx,booktabs}
\begin{document}

\begin{table}[ht]
  \caption{Original}
  \centering
  \begin{tabular}{lrrrrrr}
    \hline
    Type & Total & Mean & Median & Stdev & Min & Max \\
    \hline
    Test1 & 490 &  15 &   8 &  24 &   1 & 115 \\
    Test2 & 52610 & 1697 & 1620 & 430 & 920 & 2850 \\
    \hline
  \end{tabular}
\end{table}


\begin{table}[ht]
  \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.2}%
  \caption{\texttt{booktabs} version}
  \centering
  \begin{tabular}{l *{6}{r} }
    \toprule
    Type & Total & Mean & Median & Stdev & Min & Max \\
    \midrule
    Test1 & 490 &  15 &   8 &  24 &   1 & 115 \\
    Test2 & 52610 & 1697 & 1620 & 430 & 920 & 2850 \\
    \bottomrule
  \end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{document}

booktabs' \toprule, \midrule and \bottomrule inserts additional (white) rules to separate the text around these rules a little. This, together with the use of an increased \arraystretch seems sufficient to obtain a breathable result.

After reading your solution, I noticed that the xtable documentation contains an optional argument to set booktabs=True. — blehman, Dec 18 '14 at 06:06

Bernard · Answer 2 · 2014-12-16T00:53:24.820

You can try the cellspace package, that defines minimal vertical spacing above and below cells in columns with specifier prefixed with the letter S. If one uses the siunitx package which also uses the letter S, the prefix is replaced with the letter C:

%%%%%%%%%%
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage[sc]{mathpazo}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{geometry}
\usepackage[labelfont=sf,hypcap=false,format=hang,width=1\columnwidth]{caption}
\geometry{verbose,tmargin=2.5cm,bmargin=2.5cm,lmargin=3cm,rmargin=3cm}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage{array, booktabs}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\sisetup{table-format =4.0,table-number-alignment = center}
\usepackage{cellspace}
\setlength\cellspacetoplimit{4pt}
\setlength\cellspacebottomlimit{4pt}

\begin{document}
%%%%%%%%%%

\title{Understanding Tables: Vertical Spacing}
\author{Brian}
\maketitle
This report is designed to be a quick resource for editing the vertical spacing in 'tabularx' tables. \\

\begin{table}[ht]
\captionof{table}{With \texttt{cellspace}}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{ClS[table-format=5.0]SSS[table-format=3.0]S[table-format=3.0] S}
  \toprule
Type & {Total} & {Mean} & {Median} & {Stdev} & {Min} & {Max} \\
  \midrule
Test1 & 490 & 15 & 8 & 24 & 1 & 115 \\
  Test2 & 52610 & 1697 & 1620 & 430 & 920 & 2850 \\
   \bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{document}

enter image description here

Vertical spacing options in tables built under the tabularx package

2 Answers2