How to create alternating rows in a table?

Question

Sometimes you can see in books tables, that have alternating background color for rows in a table to support readability. How I can achieve this with LaTeX?

And yes, I could put macros \odd and \even into each row, but in that case I would have to change all following rows, if I input later another row into the table. I want TeX to decide itself, which row is odd or even and put the appropiate style into it.

score 172 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 03 '17 at 21:17

172

You can use the features of the colortbl package with additions of xcolor. See code below for a small example.

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}    % loads also »colortbl«

\begin{document}
  \rowcolors{2}{gray!25}{white}
  \begin{tabular}{cc}
    \rowcolor{gray!50}
    Table head & Table head\\
    Some values & Some values\\
    Some values & Some values\\
    Some values & Some values\\
    Some values & Some values\\
  \end{tabular}
\end{document}

enter image description here

The particular package manuals have the details.

edited Feb 03 '17 at 21:17

Enlico

2,592

answered Nov 14 '10 at 13:23

Thorsten Donig

46,014

If there are some other languages text in the table, please do not use the the order "\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}" – ccy Aug 27 '16 at 08:52
3

Actually, the \rowcolors command is not referenced anywhere in the manual. Only the \rowcolor without the s. Any idea on how to make color alternate every n row ? – Overdrivr Oct 12 '16 at 10:06
Be careful with this approach: in my setup it colored the part of equations typeset with \begin{cases}\end{cases} – cw' Oct 18 '19 at 15:21
1

Can the gray color start from the second row instead of first one ? – alper Nov 19 '20 at 22:27
1

@alper change the order of colors: \rowcolors{2}{white}{gray!25} – Matthias Luh Nov 29 '23 at 09:35
I noticed that in TeXstudio, applying the rowcolors caused some table lines to disappear. They are actually not gone, but just not rendered. This is weird because I didn't change the pdf view at all. The lines appear by increasing the zoom level in the pdf viewer or using another pdf viewer. – Matthias Luh Nov 29 '23 at 09:44

score 35 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 31 '19 at 16:35

35

This can easily be achieved using xcolor. It is explained at Wikibooks, you just add the table option to \usepackage{xcolor} and in the table itself you put

\rowcolors{1}{color-1}{color-2}

edited Aug 31 '19 at 16:35

Ramaprakasha

585

answered Nov 14 '10 at 13:23

Pieter

5,411

score 32 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 14 '10 at 17:57

32

One thing that might be worth pointing out, is that apparently, many packages call on xcolor, and I had endless clashes first time I tried it, and it took me such a long time to figure this one out, so I felt it might help someone as slow as me to mention this: The xcolor package should be loaded last (or at least after the clashing packages).

answered Nov 14 '10 at 17:57

Jóhann

1,845

Thanks, I could reproduce the clash, but had it not in first place, because I added it at the end anyways. But that was pure chance, so others might run into this problem. – Mnementh Nov 14 '10 at 18:14
42

I had that clash using beamer. Since beamer loads xcolor internally, you cannot add \usepackage[table]{xcolor} just to specify the table option. Therefore you have to put the line \PassOptionsToPackage{table}{xcolor} before the \documentclass{..}. Hope somebody else can use this :-) – Bertram Nudelbach Jun 06 '12 at 07:39
1

Thank you Bertram, this was exactly the solution I was looking for. I was using the tufte-book class. Now it works flawlessly ;) \PassOptionsToPackage{table}{xcolor} \documentclass{..} – Apr 12 '13 at 13:16
1

Another approach which might be worth trying in this case (xcolor already loaded by another package): just load colortbl instead of xcolor. – Paul Paulsen Feb 06 '15 at 17:33
2

@PaulPaulsen this does not work because the command \rowcolors is not defined by colortbl but by xcolor if the table option is used. Therefore your solution doesn't work in this case. – Skillmon May 17 '17 at 14:45
3

@BertramNudelbach An alternative to the solution using \PassOptionsToPackage{table}{xcolor} is to load the beamer package with the option xcolor=table as specified in the Beamer user guide on p. 19. – applesoup Mar 22 '18 at 10:49

F. Pantigny · Answer 4 · 2021-08-27T17:48:03.747

5

The environment {NiceTabular} of nicematrix has tools in order to color cells, rows and columns in a convenient way.

Morevorer, with nicematrix you won't have the thin white lines you see in some PDF viewers.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{nicematrix}
\begin{document}
\begin{NiceTabular}{cc}
\CodeBefore
  \rowcolor{gray!50}{1}
  \rowcolors{2}{gray!25}{white}
\Body
Table head & Table head\
Some values & Some values\
Some values & Some values\
Some values & Some values\
Some values & Some values\
\end{NiceTabular}
\end{document}

You need several compilations (because nicematrix uses PGF/Tikz nodes under the hood).

You can also color the rows with any cycle of colors:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{nicematrix}
\begin{document}
\begin{NiceTabular}{c}
\CodeBefore
  \rowlistcolors{1}{red!15,blue!15,green!15}
\Body
  Mathilde \
  Pierre \
  Paul \
  Juliette \
  Jacques \
  Antoine \
  Emmanuelle \
\end{NiceTabular}
\end{document}

edited Aug 27 '21 at 17:48

answered Mar 23 '21 at 15:44

F. Pantigny

40,250

1

You could elaborate on why you won't see the "thin white lines" (because the row colours are drawn across the entire row rather than on a cell-by-cell basis), but then also mention that at the first go-around, you need to compile three times. Subsequent compilations may require fewer runs if nothing changes in terms of the tabular position. However, just mentioning {NiceTabular} and boasting about the positive things only is being biased... – Werner Aug 27 '21 at 19:16
@Werner: In fact, with nicematrix, if you use \cellcolor{...} in two adjacent cells (with the same color), you won't see thin white lines. The package has been designed to avoid those thin lines even if it is on a cell-by-cell basis. For the compilations, I have said that several (several) compilations may be needed. – F. Pantigny Aug 27 '21 at 20:07
Ahhh, I see that now. – Werner Aug 27 '21 at 20:36
For the long lines can it add auto newline at the end of each line instead of continue – alper Jan 23 '22 at 14:26
@alper: In {NiceTabular}, you can use columns of type p, b and m as in standard {tabular} (of the package array). – F. Pantigny Jan 23 '22 at 16:07
I was able to make it work with following paramteres: \begin{NiceTabular}{|Y{0.125}|P{0.8}|} – alper Jan 23 '22 at 17:17

dfrankow · Answer 5 · 2020-02-14T15:24:48.290

This post says if you want to apply alternating colors (white, then lightgray) to all your tables, you can use pure TeX to "redefine the tabular environment":

\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\definecolor{lightgray}{gray}{0.94}
\let\oldtabular\tabular
\let\endoldtabular\endtabular
\renewenvironment{tabular}{\rowcolors{2}{lightgray}{white}\oldtabular}{\endoldtabular}

I edited the example slightly to make white first, and the lightgray lighter.

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 03 '21 at 00:32

An alternative solution with tblr and booktabs environments of tabularray package: alternating rows work well even if you have changed the vertical space between them.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{tabularray}
\UseTblrLibrary{booktabs}
\begin{document}
\begin{tblr}{
  colspec = {rccc},
  row{odd} = {blue8},
  row{even} = {azure8},
  row{1} = {purple8},
}

\hline[2pt]
  Thing & Value & Value & Value \
\hline[1pt]
      A & 1     & 2     & 3     \
      B & 1     & 2     & 3     \
      C & 1     & 2     & 3     \
      D & 1     & 2     & 3     \
      E & 1     & 2     & 3     \
\hline[2pt]
\end{tblr}
\bigskip
\begin{booktabs}{
  colspec = {rccc},
  row{odd} = {blue8},
  row{even} = {azure8},
  row{1} = {purple8},
}
\toprule
  Thing & Value & Value & Value \
\midrule
      A & 1     & 2     & 3     \
\addlinespace[2pt]
      B & 1     & 2     & 3     \
\addlinespace[2pt]
      C & 1     & 2     & 3     \
\specialrule{2pt,teal5}{0pt}{2pt}
      D & 1     & 2     & 3     \
\addlinespace[3pt]
      E & 1     & 2     & 3     \
\bottomrule
\end{booktabs}
\end{document}

score 0 · Answer 7 · edited Oct 17 '19 at 00:22

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}

\usepackage{multirow} 

\usepackage{float}
 \usepackage{graphicx} %rotate text
 \usepackage{colortbl}

\begin{document}







\begin{table}[ht]
\rowcolors{1}{}{lightgray}
\centering
\caption{Multirow table with continuous coloring.}\label{tab:multi row}
\begin{tabular}{p{5cm}p{5cm}}
\hline
Column 1 & Column 2\\
\hline
-&-\\
-&-\\
\cellcolor{green}&Single-row\\
\cellcolor{green}&Single-row\\
%\parbox[t]{2mm}{\multirow{-3}{*}{Rotating}} & working row \\
\cellcolor{green}\parbox[t]{2mm}{\multirow{-3}{*}{\rotatebox[origin=c]{90}{$job\_id$}}} & working row \\
-&-\\
-&-\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}%



\begin{table}[h]
\centering
\begin{tabular}{|c|l|r|r|r|r|}\hline
~ & \multicolumn{1}{c|}{Text} & {\hfill Text\hfill} & \multicolumn{1}{c|}{Text} & \multicolumn{1}{c|}{Text} & \multicolumn{1}{c|}{Text} \\ \hline
\multirow{3}{*}{\rotatebox[origin=c]{90}{\parbox[c]{1cm}{\centering rotato-ata}}} & text &&&&\\
& text &testing A& testing B&&\\
& text &right aligned&&&\\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}


\begin{table}[ht]
\rowcolors{1}{}{lightgray}
\centering
\caption{Multirow table with all cells in the same color.}\label{tab:multi row}
\begin{tabular}{p{5cm}p{5cm}}
\hline
Column 1 & Column 2\\
\hline
-                       &       -       \\
-                       &       -       \\
\cellcolor{green} Text Green   &   Single-row  \\
\cellcolor{yellow} &   Single-row  \\
\multirow{-3}{*}{\cellcolor{red}Text of -3, Misplaced}&Single-row\\
-                       &       -       \\
-                       &       -       \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}%


\begin{table}[ht]
\rowcolors{1}{}{lightgray}
\centering
\caption{Multirow table with all rows in the same color.}\label{tab:multi row}
\begin{tabular}{p{5cm}p{5cm}}
\hline
Column 1 & Column 2\\
\hline
-                       &       -       \\
-                       &       -       \\
\rowcolor{green}        &   Single-row  \\
\rowcolor{yellow}       &   Single-row  \\
\rowcolor{red}\multirow{-3}{*}{Text}&Single-row\\
-                       &       -       \\
-                       &       -       \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}%



\end{document}

How to create alternating rows in a table?

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