Fitting wide table in the page without making it too small

Question

I have this wide table for my paper:

\begin{table}[h]
\centering
\begin{adjustbox}{width=1\textwidth}
\begin{tabular}{lcccccccccc}
\toprule
\multirow{2}[3]{*}{Condition} & \multicolumn{4}{c}{EMO RE} & \multicolumn{5}{c}{Pairwise Comparisons} \\
\cmidrule(lr){2-5} \cmidrule(lr){6-11}
 & Angry & Fearful & Happy & Neutral & Angry-Fearful & Angry-Happy & Angry-Neutral &Fearful-Happy & Fearful-Neutral & Happy-Neutral\\
\midrule
Congruent & 5 & 8 & 12 & 2 & 5 & 8 & 12 & 2 & 8 & 12  \\
Incongruent-Body Focus & 6 & 9 & 2 & 6 & 5 & 8 & 12 & 8 & 12 & 2  \\ 
Incongruent Voice Focus & 7 & 9 & 5 & 8 & 5 & 8 & 12 & 2 & 8 & 12  \\ 
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{adjustbox}
\end{table}

I used adjustbox to fit into the page which worked but now the text is too small it does not look good at all. What would you recommend?

Welcome to TeX.SE! Please extend your code fragment to complete small document with your table. One way to make your table narrower is writing column headers (in second row) in tro lines. — Zarko, Jan 20 '23 at 14:02

Zarko · Answer 1 · 2023-01-21T10:43:01.150

Never scale tables. It make inconsistent font size used in table.

Since you not provide any information about your document layout, we can only guess about it. So, the MWE (Minimal Working Example) below can gives only an idea, how you can solve your problem:

in table use smaller font size
reduce separation between columns
wrote column headers in two lines

In MWE are used tblr environment of tabularray package with S columns of siunitx. Using them the table code is shorter and simpler, and numbers are nicer alignet:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[margin=25mm]{geometry}
%---------------- show page layout. don't use in a real document!
\usepackage{showframe}
\renewcommand\ShowFrameLinethickness{0.15pt}
\renewcommand*\ShowFrameColor{\color{red}}
%---------------------------------------------------------------%
\usepackage{tabularray}
\UseTblrLibrary{booktabs, siunitx}
\begin{document}
    \begin{table}[ht]
    \small
\begin{tblr}{colsep=3pt,
             colspec = {@{} l *{10}{X[c,m, si={table-format=2.0}]} @{}},
             row{1,2} = {guard}
            }
    \toprule
\SetCell[r=2]{m}    Condition
    &  \SetCell[c=4]{c} EMO RE
        &   &   &   &  \SetCell[c=6]{c}    Pairwise Comparisons
                        &   &   &   &   &                       \
    \cmidrule[r]{2-5} 
    \cmidrule[r]{6-11}
    & Angry 
        & Fearful 
            &   Happy 
                & Neutral 
                    & Angry-Fearful 
                        & Angry-Happy 
                            & Angry-Neutral
                                & Fearful-Happy
                                    & Fearful-Neutral
                                        & Happy-Neutral     \
    \midrule
Congruent 
    & 5 & 8 & 12& 2 & 5 & 8 & 12& 2 & 8 & 12                \
Incongruent-Body Focus 
    & 6 & 9 & 2 & 6 & 5 & 8 & 12& 8 & 12 & 2                \
Incongruent Voice Focus 
    & 7 & 9 & 5 & 8 & 5 & 8 & 12& 2 & 8 & 12                \
    \bottomrule
    \end{tblr}
\end{table}
\end{document}

Red lines show pages' text block borders.

Addendum:
Reproduction table style in @Mico answer (+1) with rblr tableČ

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{geometry}
\usepackage{tabularray}
\UseTblrLibrary{booktabs, siunitx} 
\usepackage{caption}
\newlength\mylen            % for second example
\begin{document}
    \begin{table}[htb]
    \settowidth\mylen{Incongruent-}
\begin{tblr}{colsep=2pt,
             colspec = {@{}   Q[l, m, wd=\mylen, cmd={\hangafter=1\hangindent=1ex}]
                        *{10}{X[c, m, si={table-format=2.0}]}
                        @{}},
             row{1,2} = {guard}
            }
    \toprule
Condition
    &  \SetCell[c=4]{c} EMO RE
        &   &   &   &  \SetCell[c=6]{c}    Pairwise Comparisons
                        &   &   &   &   &                       \
    \cmidrule[r]{2-5}
    \cmidrule[r]{6-11}
    & Angry
        & Fearful
            &   Happy
                & Neutral
                    & Angry-Fearful
                        & Angry-Happy
                            & Angry-Neutral
                                & Fearful-Happy
                                    & Fearful-Neutral
                                        & Happy-Neutral     \
    \midrule
Congruent
    & 5 & 8 & 12& 2 & 5 & 8 & 12& 2 & 8 & 12                \
Incongruent-Body Focus
    & 6 & 9 & 2 & 6 & 5 & 8 & 12& 8 & 12 & 2                \
Incongruent Voice Focus
    & 7 & 9 & 5 & 8 & 5 & 8 & 12& 2 & 8 & 12                \
    \bottomrule
    \end{tblr}
\end{table}
\end{document}

Mico · Accepted Answer · 2023-01-21T12:15:22.857

I suggest you employ a tabularx environment and allow automatic line breaking in columns 6 thru 11. You should probably also allow automatic line breaking in column 1.

If you can abbreviate the column headers in columns 6 to 11, you can make do with a simple tabular environment. See the second table below for an application of this idea.

\documentclass{article} % or some other suitable document class
\usepackage{geometry}   % set page parameters suitably
\usepackage{booktabs,tabularx}
% define two new column types:
\newcolumntype{C}{>{\centering\arraybackslash}X}
\newcolumntype{M}{>{\raggedright\arraybackslash\hangafter=1\hangindent=1em}m{\mylen}}
\newlength\mylen
\begin{document}
% basic tabularx version
\begin{table}[h]
\renewcommand\tabularxcolumn[1]{m{#1}}
\setlength\tabcolsep{2pt} % default: 6pt
\settowidth\mylen{Incongruent-}
\addtolength\mylen{1.5ex}
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{@{} M {4}{c} {6}{C} @{}}
\toprule
Condition & 
\multicolumn{4}{c}{EMO RE} & 
\multicolumn{6}{c@{}}{Pairwise Comparisons} \
\cmidrule(lr){2-5} \cmidrule(l){6-11}
 & Angry & Fearful & Happy & Neutral & 
 Angry-Fearful & Angry-Happy     & Angry-Neutral &
 Fearful-Happy & Fearful-Neutral & Happy-Neutral\
\midrule
Congruent               & 5 & 8 & 12 & 2 & 5 & 8 & 12 & 2 & 8 & 12  \
Incongruent-Body Focus  & 6 & 9 & 2 & 6 & 5 & 8 & 12 & 8 & 12 & 2  \ 
Incongruent-Voice Focus & 7 & 9 & 5 & 8 & 5 & 8 & 12 & 2 & 8 & 12  \ 
\bottomrule
\end{tabularx}
\end{table}
% compact version
\begin{table}[h]
\centering
\setlength\tabcolsep{4pt} % default: 6pt
\settowidth\mylen{Incongruent-}
\addtolength\mylen{1.5ex}
\begin{tabular}{@{} M *{10}{c} @{}}
\toprule
Condition & 
\multicolumn{4}{c}{EMO RE} & 
\multicolumn{6}{c@{}}{Pairwise Comparisons} \
\cmidrule(lr){2-5} \cmidrule(l){6-11}
& Angry & Fearful & Happy & Neutral & A-F & A-H & A-N & F-H & F-N & H-N \
\midrule
Congruent               & 5 & 8 & 12 & 2 & 5 & 8 & 12 & 2 & 8 & 12  \
Incongruent-Body Focus  & 6 & 9 & 2 & 6 & 5 & 8 & 12 & 8 & 12 & 2  \ 
Incongruent-Voice Focus & 7 & 9 & 5 & 8 & 5 & 8 & 12 & 2 & 8 & 12  \ 
\midrule[\heavyrulewidth]
\multicolumn{11}{@{}l}{Abbreviations: A-F: Angry-Fearful, A-H: Angry-Happy, etc.}
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}

Fitting wide table in the page without making it too small

2 Answers2