[Tex/LaTex] Column and row padding in tables

Question

How do you guys go about controlling column padding in tables?

Update

To clarify, I'm looking for a way to control both vertical and horizontal padding. So, if I had a simple table like in the following code snippet, I could pad the columns and make them look a bit less… ugly. 😛

\begin{tabular}{|l|l|}
    \hline
    column 1 & column 2 \\ 
    \hline
    I really would like this less & crammed\\
    \hline
\end{tabular}

I tried this by using the command \vspace but it leaves gaps in the vertical lines.

Answer 1

Use a default tabular environment without package booktabs and add right before and after the environment:

\bgroup
\def\arraystretch{1.5}%  1 is the default, change whatever you need
\begin{tabular}{|c|...}
...
\end{tabular}
\egroup

and also use column type c instead of l, If you want more horizontal space between the columns then use \setlength\tabcolsep{<whatever length>}.