[Tex/LaTex] Too large bottom margin with xtab (or supertabular)

page-breakingsupertabularxtab

I am using the xtab package to add a long table in a business report.
A premature page break is added at each page, leaving a large bottom margin.
Same problem occurs with package supertabular (on which xtab is based).
Any ideas?

Related: Long tables (spanning multiple pages), put side by side

I put a sample below:

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage{xtab}
\begin{document}
\begin{xtabular}{|l|l|}
a & 0 \\
a & 1 \\
a & 2 \\
a & 3 \\
a & 4 \\
a & 5 \\
a & 6 \\
a & 7 \\
a & 8 \\
a & 9 \\
a & 0 \\
a & 1 \\
a & 2 \\
a & 3 \\
a & 4 \\
a & 5 \\
a & 6 \\
a & 7 \\
a & 8 \\
a & 9 \\
a & 0 \\
a & 1 \\
a & 2 \\
a & 3 \\
a & 4 \\
a & 5 \\
a & 6 \\
a & 7 \\
a & 8 \\
a & 9 \\
a & 0 \\
a & 1 \\
a & 2 \\
a & 3 \\
a & 4 \\
a & 5 \\
a & 6 \\
a & 7 \\
a & 8 \\
a & 9 \\
a & 0 \\
a & 1 \\
a & 2 \\
a & 3 \\
a & 4 \\
a & 5 \\
a & 6 \\
a & 7 \\
a & 8 \\
a & 9 \\
a & 0 \\
a & 1 \\
a & 2 \\
a & 3 \\
a & 4 \\
a & 5 \\
a & 6 \\
a & 7 \\
a & 8 \\
a & 9 \\
a & 0 \\
a & 1 \\
a & 2 \\
a & 3 \\
a & 4 \\
a & 5 \\
a & 6 \\
a & 7 \\
a & 8 \\
a & 9 \\
a & 0 \\
a & 1 \\
a & 2 \\
a & 3 \\
a & 4 \\
a & 5 \\
a & 6 \\
a & 7 \\
a & 8 \\
a & 9 \\
\end{xtabular}
\end{document}

Just for reference:

The best result that I could get, is by using the following:

  • The "nofoot" option of the geometry package.

  • The xtab package for the table

  • The xentrystretch{0} command of the xtab package.

Best Answer

I added \shrinkheight{-2in} in two different places and the 3-page sample was reduced to two pages. Check this out:

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage{xtab}
\begin{document}
\begin{xtabular}{|l|l|}
\shrinkheight{-2in}
a & 0 \\
a & 1 \\
a & 2 \\
a & 3 \\
a & 4 \\
a & 5 \\
a & 6 \\
a & 7 \\
a & 8 \\
a & 9 \\
a & 0 \\
a & 1 \\
a & 2 \\
a & 3 \\
a & 4 \\
a & 5 \\
a & 6 \\
a & 7 \\
a & 8 \\
a & 9 \\
a & 0 \\
a & 1 \\
a & 2 \\
a & 3 \\
a & 4 \\
a & 5 \\
a & 6 \\
a & 7 \\
a & 8 \\
a & 9 \\
a & 0 \\
a & 1 \\
a & 2 \\
a & 3 \\
a & 4 \\
a & 5 \\
a & 6 \\
a & 7 \\
a & 8 \\
a & 9 \\
a & 0 \\
a & 1 \\
\shrinkheight{-2in}
a & 2 \\
a & 3 \\
a & 4 \\
a & 5 \\
a & 6 \\
a & 7 \\
a & 8 \\
a & 9 \\
a & 0 \\
a & 1 \\
a & 2 \\
a & 3 \\
a & 4 \\
a & 5 \\
a & 6 \\
a & 7 \\
a & 8 \\
a & 9 \\
a & 0 \\
a & 1 \\
a & 2 \\
a & 3 \\
a & 4 \\
a & 5 \\
a & 6 \\
a & 7 \\
a & 8 \\
a & 9 \\
a & 0 \\
a & 1 \\
a & 2 \\
a & 3 \\
a & 4 \\
a & 5 \\
a & 6 \\
a & 7 \\
a & 8 \\
a & 9 \\
\end{xtabular}
\end{document}