How to wrap text in LaTeX tables?

Question

I am creating a report in LaTeX which involves a few tables. I'm stuck on that as my cell data in the table is exceeding the width of the page. Can I somehow wrap the text so that it falls into the next line in the same cell of the table?

Is it somehow related to the table's width? But as it's overshooting the page's width, will it make a difference?

Solution 1

Use p{width} for your column specifiers instead of l/r/c.

\begin{tabular}{|p{1cm}|p{3cm}|}
  This text will be wrapped & Some more text \\
\end{tabular}

---

EDIT: (based on the comments)

\begin{table}[ht]
    \centering
    \begin{tabular}{p{0.35\linewidth} | p{0.6\linewidth}}
      Column 1  & Column2 \\ \hline
      This text will be wrapped & Some more text \\
      Some text here & This text maybe wrapped here if its tooooo long \\
    \end{tabular}
    \caption{Caption}
    \label{tab:my_label}
\end{table}

we get:

Solution 2

With the regular tabular environment, you want to use the p{width} column type, as marcog indicates. But that forces you to give explicit widths.

Another solution is the tabularx environment:

\usepackage{tabularx}
...
\begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{ r X }
    right-aligned foo & long long line of blah blah that will wrap when the table fills the column width\\
\end{tabularx}

---

All X columns get the same width. You can influence this by setting \hsize in the format declaration:

>{\setlength\hsize{.5\hsize}} X >{\setlength\hsize{1.5\hsize}} X

but then all the factors have to sum up to 1, I suppose (I took this from the LaTeX companion). There is also the package tabulary which will adjust column widths to balance row heights. For the details, you can get the documentation for each package with texdoc tabulary (in TeXlive).

Solution 3

Another option is to insert a minipage in each cell where text wrapping is desired, e.g.:

\begin{table}[H]
\begin{tabular}{l}
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.8\columnwidth}%
a very long line a very long line a very long line a very long line
a very long line a very long line a very long line a very long line
a very long line a very long line a very long line %
\end{minipage}\tabularnewline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

Solution 4

I like the simplicity of tabulary package:

\usepackage{tabulary}
...
\begin{tabulary}{\linewidth}{LCL}
    \hline
    Short sentences      & \#  & Long sentences                                                 \\
    \hline
    This is short.       & 173 & This is much loooooooonger, because there are many more words.  \\
    This is not shorter. & 317 & This is still loooooooonger, because there are many more words. \\
    \hline
\end{tabulary} 

In the example, you arrange the whole width of the table with respect to \textwidth. E.g 0.4 of it. Then the rest is automatically done by the package.

Most of the example is taken from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Tables .

Solution 5

Simple like a piece of CAKE!

You can define a new column type like (L in this case) while maintaining the current alignment (c, r or l):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array}
\newcolumntype{L}{>{\centering\arraybackslash}m{3cm}}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}
    \begin{tabular}{|c|L|L|}
        \hline
        Title 1 & Title 2 & Title 3 \\
        \hline 
        one-liner & multi-line and centered & \multicolumn{1}{m{3cm}|}{multi-line piece of text to show case a multi-line and justified cell}   \\
        \hline
        apple & orange & banana \\
        \hline
        apple & orange & banana \\
        \hline
    \end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}

View more solutions

Comments

[moinudin]

Interesting, that looks really useful. How intelligent is it when it comes to selecting column widths? For example, if you have two columns that need to be wrapped but one with much longer text than the other, does it still asign them equal width?

[Damien Pollet]

I edited my answer. But actually in practice I try simplify my tables so that I only need X for a single column. I just discovered tabulary :)

[Quentin Pradet]

Thanks, this allowed me to place itemize lists in my cells.

[Andrejas]

Good solution, but lose the '|' if you don't want a border around the table. It would then become \begin{tabular}{p{1cm}p{3cm}}

[Dylan Knowles]

Is there any way to do this while still specifying alignment in each cell?

[Veridian]

I found a way to specify alignment in each cell! Create a macro! \newcolumntype{L}{>{\centering\arraybackslash}m{.8cm}} \begin{table*}[t] %\small \caption{Comparison} \centering %\begin{tabular}{|L|L|L|L|L|L|L|L|L|L|L|L|L|}

[Sander]

What if I have two columns where the first should be as long as needed to fit it's contents and the other should fill to the line width, while wrapping? So basically, I need begin{tabular}{lp{<whatever is left to fill the line width>}}

[jgyou]

Great solution. However, I'd recommend using relative values instead of arbitrary dimension, e.g. p{0.2\linewidth}p{0.6\linewidth}}

[LondonRob]

Specifying the width manually is clearly a major flaw with this method (who really wants to specify the width, just because they want the text to wrap?) I'd suggest using tabularx as suggested by @DamienPollet

[Nanashi No Gombe]

@Veridian I get error just by ditto copying and pasting your macro before the beginning of the document. I am sure you meant otherwise. Could you kindly elaborate on which part needs to be copied where?

[U. Windl]

I think the answer should explain the meaning of \columnwidth: When I tried it, it seemed to be more table-width rather than column-width, so I had to set a manual proportion like 0.2\columnwidth to get a reasonable width.

[starbeamrainbowlabs]

Downvote. This is a code-only answer, with no explanation at all.

[Ahmed salah]

Furthermore, it is wrong anyway since the second row contains 4 cells where the table is designed to accommodate only two columns. And it is not related to wrapping cell content anyhow.

[Jung]

how do you make the text in the 'multi-line piece ...' center align

[Shayan Amani]

@Jung notice having L in the corresponding column \begin{tabular}{|c|L|L|}

[ashman]

What does p stand for?

[user3582228]

It doesn't seem to work if the table has multi-columns:( Am I right? In my case, the table has lengthy column headings but it doesn't wrap. Please guide me.

[Tasneem]

I am getting error "! Missing number, treated as zero. <to be read again> } l.197 \end{tabular} }"

[PS Nayak]

Good solution. But it is not working in case of multirow{}. What would be the solution then?

[Basilique]

it is a really useful package, thank you!

[Deadly Pointer]

This makes the content centered by default, you can define alignment by \makecell[l]{A \\ B} (l = left, r=right)

[MattAllegro]

@ashman p is for paragraph :)