Drawing table multicolumn in Latex

Question

I have a problem for drawing a table in latex. I want to have a table with 13 columns at the end. I did the biggest thing of the work. I have this following table :

But I have a problem for the first line. I want to put Historical (1850-2005) in the third column of the first line. Here it's my code :

\begin{table}[H]
\caption{test}
\centering
\begin{tabular}[b]{|l|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|}
\hline
& \multicolumn{3}{|c|}{PAST1000 (850-1850)} &\multicolumn{3}{|c|}{HISTORICAL (1850-2005)} \\
\hline
& \multicolumn{2}{|c|}{Ablation} & \multicolumn{2}{|c|}{Accumulation} & \multicolumn{2}{|c|}{GrIS} & \multicolumn{2}{|c|}{Ablation} & \multicolumn{2}{|c|}{Accumulation} & \multicolumn{2}{|c|}{GrIS}\\
\hline
& SMB & ST2 & SMB & ST2 & SMB & ST2  & SMB & ST2 & SMB & ST2 & SMB & ST2\\
\hline
CESM & 0.25 & -0.044 & -0.92 & -0.042 & -0.67 & -0.043 & -6.24& 0.5 & 6.15& 0.5 & -0.09& 0.5\\
CCSM4 & -0.71 & -0.062 & -2.71 & -0.067 & -3.42 & -0.065 & -25.42& 0.91 & -8.15& 0.95 & -33.57& 0.93\\
IPSL-CM5A-LR &  & -0.025 &  & -0.024 &  & -0.024 & -0.52& 0.85 & 14.83& 1.13 & 14.31& 1.03\\
MRI-CGCM3 & 0.24 & -0.018 & -0.26 & -0.024 & -0.02 & -0.022 & -24.85& 0.78 & 13.61& 0.68 & -11.24& 0.71\\
\hline
Average Models & -1.7 & -0.037 & -1.21 & -0.04 & -2.91 & -0.039 & -14.26& 0.76 & 6.61& 0.81 & -7.65& 0.79\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

Thank you in advance !

Welcome to TeX.SX! I think if you change both \multicolumns of the first line to \multicolumn{6}... you'll get what you want... — Phelype Oleinik, Apr 13 '18 at 15:38
I use this site: http://www.tablesgenerator.com/ to create tables and then, export its code to LaTex. It's very simple and easy to work with. — mvfs314, Apr 13 '18 at 16:01

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 13 '18 at 16:50

In order to achieve the desired position of 'historical...' you have to change \multicolumn{3} to \multicolumn{6}.

Please note, that as you did not provide the documentclass, I simply chose one. Additionally, I decreased the font size, as the table was (and still is) too large to fit on the page.

\documentclass{scrreprt}
\begin{document}

\begin{table}
\footnotesize
\caption{test}
\centering
\begin{tabular}[b]{|l|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|}
\hline
& \multicolumn{6}{|c|}{PAST1000 (850-1850)} &\multicolumn{6}{|c|}{HISTORICAL (1850-2005)} \\
\hline
& \multicolumn{2}{|c|}{Ablation} & \multicolumn{2}{|c|}{Accumulation} & \multicolumn{2}{|c|}{GrIS} & \multicolumn{2}{|c|}{Ablation} & \multicolumn{2}{|c|}{Accumulation} & \multicolumn{2}{|c|}{GrIS}\\
\hline
& SMB & ST2 & SMB & ST2 & SMB & ST2  & SMB & ST2 & SMB & ST2 & SMB & ST2\\
\hline
CESM & 0.25 & -0.044 & -0.92 & -0.042 & -0.67 & -0.043 & -6.24& 0.5 & 6.15& 0.5 & -0.09& 0.5\\
CCSM4 & -0.71 & -0.062 & -2.71 & -0.067 & -3.42 & -0.065 & -25.42& 0.91 & -8.15& 0.95 & -33.57& 0.93\\
IPSL-CM5A-LR &  & -0.025 &  & -0.024 &  & -0.024 & -0.52& 0.85 & 14.83& 1.13 & 14.31& 1.03\\
MRI-CGCM3 & 0.24 & -0.018 & -0.26 & -0.024 & -0.02 & -0.022 & -24.85& 0.78 & 13.61& 0.68 & -11.24& 0.71\\
\hline
Average Models & -1.7 & -0.037 & -1.21 & -0.04 & -2.91 & -0.039 & -14.26& 0.76 & 6.61& 0.81 & -7.65& 0.79\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}

Although the above example fixes the problem you described, I would suggest a different layout. The following MWE does not need vertical lines, uses horizontal lines with appropriate spacing above and below from booktabs and aligns the numbers with respect to their decimal separators sing S columns from the siunitx package:

\documentclass{scrreprt}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}
\footnotesize
\setlength\tabcolsep{4pt}
\caption{test}
\centering
\begin{tabular}[b]{l
                   S[table-format=-1.2]
                   S[table-format=-1.3]
                   S[table-format=-1.2]
                   S[table-format=-1.3]
                   S[table-format=-1.2]
                   S[table-format=-1.3]
                   S[table-format=-2.2]
                   S[table-format=1.2]
                   S[table-format=-2.2]
                   S[table-format=1.2]
                   S[table-format=-2.2]
                   S[table-format=-1.2]}
\toprule
& \multicolumn{6}{c}{PAST1000 (850-1850)} &\multicolumn{6}{c}{HISTORICAL (1850-2005)} \\
\cmidrule(r){2-7} \cmidrule(l){8-13}
& \multicolumn{2}{c}{Ablation} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{Accumulation} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{GrIS} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{Ablation} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{Accumulation} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{GrIS}\\
\cmidrule(r){2-3}  \cmidrule(lr){4-5} \cmidrule(lr){6-7} \cmidrule(lr){8-9} \cmidrule(lr){10-11} \cmidrule(l){12-13} 
& {SMB} & {ST2} & {SMB} & {ST2} & {SMB} & {ST2}  & {SMB} & {ST2} & {SMB} & {ST2} & {SMB} & {ST2}\\

CESM & 0.25 & -0.044 & -0.92 & -0.042 & -0.67 & -0.043 & -6.24& 0.5 & 6.15& 0.5 & -0.09& 0.5\\
CCSM4 & -0.71 & -0.062 & -2.71 & -0.067 & -3.42 & -0.065 & -25.42& 0.91 & -8.15& 0.95 & -33.57& 0.93\\
IPSL-CM5A-LR &  & -0.025 &  & -0.024 &  & -0.024 & -0.52& 0.85 & 14.83& 1.13 & 14.31& 1.03\\
MRI-CGCM3 & 0.24 & -0.018 & -0.26 & -0.024 & -0.02 & -0.022 & -24.85& 0.78 & 13.61& 0.68 & -11.24& 0.71\\
\midrule
Average Models & -1.7 & -0.037 & -1.21 & -0.04 & -2.91 & -0.039 & -14.26& 0.76 & 6.61& 0.81 & -7.65& 0.79\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{document}

Drawing table multicolumn in Latex

1 Answers1