scalingtables
I have a table that is just a little too wide for a 3.33" column. Is there a way to simply shrink the table a little to make it fit? I'm OK if the 10pt font becomes 9pt-something. Here is an example.
\begin{table}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{r|lll}
\multicolumn{1}{r}{}
& \multicolumn{1}{l}{Heading 1}
& \multicolumn{1}{l}{Heading 2}
& \multicolumn{1}{l}{Heading 3} \\ \cline{2-4}
Row 1 & Cell 1,1 & Cell 1,2 & Cell 1,3 \\
Row 2 & Cell 2,1 & Cell 2,2 & Cell 2,3
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
With the adjustbox package you can say
\adjustbox{max width=\columnwidth}{...}
that will scale the contents only if it exceeds the \columnwidth, according to the documentation:
A good example is
max width=\textwidthwhich will limit large content to the text width but will not affect smaller content.
Of course \textwidth is just by way of example and any dimension can be used.
Here's an example:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{adjustbox,lipsum}
\begin{document}
\noindent\adjustbox{max width=\textwidth}{%
\begin{tabular}{p{.7\textwidth}}\lipsum[2]\end{tabular}}
\noindent\adjustbox{max width=\textwidth}{%
\begin{tabular}{p{1.5\textwidth}}\lipsum[2]\end{tabular}}
\end{document}
As suggested by Martin Scharrer in a comment, the environment form can be even handier in this case:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{adjustbox,lipsum}
\begin{document}
\begin{adjustbox}{max width=\textwidth}
\begin{tabular}{p{.7\textwidth}}\lipsum[2]\end{tabular}
\end{adjustbox}
\begin{adjustbox}{max width=\textwidth}
\begin{tabular}{p{1.5\textwidth}}\lipsum[2]\end{tabular}}
\end{adjustbox}
\end{document}
The environment form automatically adds \noindent.
\documentclass{article}
\newcommand\zz[2]{\par
\bigskip
\noindent\begin{tabulary}{\textwidth}{LR}#1\end{tabulary}\par
}
\usepackage{tabulary}
% http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/87097/is-it-possible-to-make-an-underfull-tabulary-spread-out/87543#87543
\makeatletter
\def\foo#1\def\TY@ratio#2#3!!{
\def\TY@checkmin{#1%
#3}}
\expandafter\foo\TY@checkmin!!
\makeatother
\setlength\textwidth{10cm}
\begin{document}
\noindent X\dotfill X
\zz{The first song}{by Some Guy who lived then}
\zz{Some other song}{by Someone Else}
\zz{and another one by the same guy}{who also lived}
\zz{A fourth song }{by a guy with a Really Long Name
aw, he's dead, Jim}
\noindent X\dotfill X
\end{document}
Best Answer
You can resize it using
\resizebox{<width>}{<height>}from thegraphicspackage. The column width is\columnwidthand you can select!for the height to make it scale along with the width.Should the table include verbatim or similar material than
\resizeboxisn't good enough. You can use the{adjustbox}{width=\columnwidth}environment from theadjustboxpackage instead. It is based on the samegraphicxcode as\resizeboxbut allows for any content.Please do not use the
centerenvironment in floats (figure,table), it generates an extra margin and doesn't always work. Use the\centeringmacro instead.Solution with
adjustbox: