[Tex/LaTex] Adjusting column width in ‘Longtable’

columnslongtabletables

Apologies if this is a straightforward question, but how do you separate the columns in the following table so that the text isn't so close together? 

    \documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{article}
\usepackage{color}
\usepackage{graphicx, epstopdf}
\usepackage{gensymb}
\usepackage{times}
\usepackage{adjustbox}
\usepackage{tabulary}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage{booktabs,caption, makecell}
\usepackage{pdflscape,afterpage,caption}
\usepackage[british]{babel}
\usepackage[backend=bibtex, citestyle=ieee, bibstyle=ieee]{biblatex}
\usepackage[section]{placeins}%Allows you to permanently fix figures. 
\usepackage[left=2.5cm, right=2.cm, top=2.5cm]{geometry}

\begin{document}
\pagenumbering{roman}
\newpage
\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{Abbreviations}
\section*{Abbreviations}
\begin{longtable}
\setlength\tabcolsep{60pt}
\centering
  \small
 % your table
    \hspace*{-18mm}%
        \vspace{-5.5mm}%
\begin{longtable}
\toprule
{Abbreviation}&{Explanation}\\[0.5 ex]
\midrule
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
\bottomrule
 \end{longtable}%
    \hspace*{-12mm}%
    \vspace{50mm}

\label{table:ETD Raman}\\
\end{longtable}

\end{document}

I have gone through every line of code, changing paameters, but can't seem to move the text. I've attached my MWE and a picture of the output.

Thanks in advance!

Column width

Best Answer

You example has many problems...

  • You are using longtable but you did not \usepackage{longtable};

  • As @Bernard pointed out, you don't have (must not?) to nest two longtable wnvironments. I changed the outer environment to table;

  • The answer to your actual question is: remove the \setlength\tabcolsep{60pt}. This line increases the width of each column by 120pt;

  • The longtable, as any other tabular environment (tabular, tabularx, etc.), takes a mandatory argument that is the column descriptors. I used tho centered columns for you ({c c});

  • And I removed a line break after \label{table:ETD Raman}.

  • You don't need to use \centering for longtable.

enter image description here

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{article}
\usepackage{color}
\usepackage{graphicx, epstopdf}
\usepackage{gensymb}
\usepackage{times}
\usepackage{adjustbox}
\usepackage{tabulary}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{booktabs,caption, makecell}
\usepackage{pdflscape,afterpage,caption}
\usepackage[british]{babel}
% \usepackage[backend=bibtex, citestyle=ieee, bibstyle=ieee]{biblatex}
\usepackage[section]{placeins}%Allows you to permanently fix figures. 
\usepackage[left=2.5cm, right=2.cm, top=2.5cm]{geometry}

\begin{document}
\pagenumbering{roman}
\newpage
\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{Abbreviations}
\section*{Abbreviations}
% \begin{table}
% \setlength\tabcolsep{60pt}
% \centering
 % your table
\hspace*{-18mm}%
\vspace{-5.5mm}%
{\small
\begin{longtable}{c c}
\toprule
{Abbreviation}&{Explanation}\\[0.5 ex]
\midrule
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
Item1&Item1\\
\bottomrule
\label{table:ETD Raman}
 \end{longtable}%
    \hspace*{-12mm}%
    \vspace{50mm}
}

% \end{table}

\end{document}
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