Since you mentioned IEEE, in these documentclass(es) the starred versions of table and figure span the whole page.
To have a highlighted (colored) line, just add rowcolor{your_favorite_color} before the line in question. To make this available, you need to load the colortbl and the (xcolor or color) packages in the preamble.
In my example the lipsum package is just necessary to generate some random text.
Here's a MWE you can try (I kept the title and author info from the downloadable template):
\documentclass[conference]{IEEEtran}
\usepackage{xcolor}% you could also use the color package
\usepackage{colortbl}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\title{Bare Demo of IEEEtran.cls for Conferences}
\author{\authorblockN{Michael Shell}
\authorblockA{School of Electrical and\\Computer Engineering\\
Georgia Institute of Technology\\
Atlanta, Georgia 30332--0250\\
Email: mshell@ece.gatech.edu}
\and
\authorblockN{Homer Simpson}
\authorblockA{Twentieth Century Fox\\
Springfield, USA\\
Email: homer@thesimpsons.com}
\and
\authorblockN{James Kirk\\ and Montgomery Scott}
\authorblockA{Starfleet Academy\\
San Francisco, California 96678-2391\\
Telephone: (800) 555--1212\\
Fax: (888) 555--1212}}
\maketitle
\begin{abstract}
The abstract goes here.
\end{abstract}
\section{Table Example}
\lipsum[1]
\begin{table*}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
\hline
\rowcolor{gray}
A & B & C\\
\hline
1 & 2 & 3\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table*}
\lipsum[2-15]
\end{document}
Do you mean something like this:
I show only few first rows of table, other can be easily added on shoved way. This table can not appear in the first page of your article, but on the second or later page on the its top or on the bottom.
For table I use tabularx environment, redefine column type s to the left align, erase unnecessary columns and ad one on the beginning of table as you desired. I also change the formula with exponent into more readable form.
If you wish, you can change align of cells column. For example, in the first column instead center align maybe will look better right align (just change c to r).
Edit:
The first version of proposed code I replaced with slightly simplified version, which gives the same result:
\documentclass[10pt,journal,final]{IEEEtran}
\usepackage[cmex10]{amsmath}
\interdisplaylinepenalty=2500
\usepackage{float}
\usepackage{tabularx,ragged2e,booktabs,caption}
\newcolumntype{L}{>{\RaggedRight\arraybackslash}X}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\markboth{JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY,~Vol.~???, No.~???, September~????}%
{Shell \MakeLowercase{\textit{et al.}}: Bare Demo of IEEEtran.cls for Journals}
\begin{document}
\lipsum[1-5]
\begin{table*}[t]
\centering
\setlength{\tabcolsep}{3pt}
\caption{Link budget parameters}
\label{tab:linkbudget_table}
\begin{tabularx}{\hsize}{@{}>{$}r<{$:}l
>{$\displaystyle}c<{$}
L @{}}
\toprule[1.5pt]
\multicolumn{2}{c}{\textbf{Term}}
& \textbf{Formula} &\textbf{Parameter} \\
\midrule
P_{tr}
& Transmitted power
& \text{According to Eq.\ref{linkbudget}}
& Calculated \\
\addlinespace
G_{tr}
& Transmitting antenna gain
& \left(\frac{\pi D_tr}{\lambda}\right)^2
& $D_{tr} = 5[cm]$, transmitter aperture diameter;
$\lambda=800[nm]$ \\
\addlinespace
G_{MRR}
& MRR gain
& \left(\frac{\pi D_{MRR}}{\lambda}\right)^4
& $D_{MRR}=1[cm]$,MRR aperture diameter \\
\addlinespace
G_r & Receiving antenna gain
& \left(\frac{\pi D_{rec}}{\lambda}\right)^2
& $D_{rec}=5[cm]$, receiver aperture diameter \\
\addlinespace
M & Modulation efficiency
& \exp\{-\sum\limits_{N}^{}\alpha_{off}^N\}
\prod\limits_{N}^{}\left(C_m^N-1\right)
& $\alpha_{off}^N$ absorption in off state of layer $N$;
$C_m^N$ optical contrast ration of layer $N$ \\
\bottomrule[1.25pt]
\end{tabularx}
\end{table*}
\lipsum[6-17]
\end{document}
Best Answer