[Tex/LaTex] Which tabular packages do which tasks and which packages conflict

big-listtables

I've read a couple of questions recently about tabular environments, and it seems there's a whole bunch of packages that do stuff in this field. I'd really like a summary of what each package does, and which conflict.

For example a quick google (plus my memory) got me tabularx, booktabs, multirow, collcell, array, mdwtab, longtable, supertabular…

Which should I be using for what purposes? And more importantly, which conflict?

[Should this be CW? One package per answer sort of thing?]

Best Answer

I would like to start with a small list that used to be part of the tables wiki and is now maintained here. Overview of packages

Basic packages

array offers more flexible column formatting; fixes to some spacing issues. An almost "must-use" package.
booktabs supports professional looking tables; better vertical spacing; better rules; specifically designed for tables without vertical lines (the norm for publication-quality tables).
tabularx provides a column type which expands to fill the specified width of the table.
tabulary provides column types which are proportional to the natural width of their contents.
multirow lets tabular material span multiple rows.
dcolumn creates columns which align on a decimal marker. Similar packages: numprint, rccol, warpcol. Cf. also siunitx below.
tabularht sets the tabular with a specified height.

Multi-page tables

longtable provides tabulars that can split across pages.
ltxtable combines features of longtable and tabularx.
ltablex also combines features of longtable and tabularx.
supertabular provides tabulars that can split across multiple pages.
xtab extends supertabular by some features and improves page breaking.
xltabular improves the behavior of ltablex and combines xtabular convenience with longtable.

Captioning and notes

threeparttable typesets tables with captions and notes matching width.
threeparttablex provides the functionality of threeparttable to tables created using longtable.
floatrow (although mainly about customizing layouts of float environments) allows for footnotes and additional explanations in tables.
ctable allows notes/footnotes below tables and figures with the use of a command instead of an environment.

Science

siunitx (although mainly about typesetting values with units) provides the S column type that aligns on a decimal mark.

Color and fancy features

colortbl is intended for colored rows/columns/cells. The xcolor package with the table option provides alternating table row colors to extend it.
arydshln can print horizontal and vertical dashed lines.
delarray adds delimiters (braces, parentheses, brackets) to arrays.
bigdelim inserts variable-sized multi-row delimiters into a table.
blkarray splits arrays into blocks and add delimiters for each block.
makecell multiple line cells, better headers, gape in cells, numbered rows, thick lines, diagonally divided cells, etc.
diagbox diagonally divided tabular cell.
hhline better double line producing.
tabularkv adds a key value interface for tabular properties.

All-rounder

tabu is a single package that provides much of the functionality of many of the above packages. It is unmaintained and usage currently not recommended.
tabularray is a new LaTeX3 package that provides much of the functionality of tabu package. It is an alternative for the outdated tabu package.
nicematrix is a LaTeX3 package which constructs matrices and tabulars based on standard environments of LaTeX, array and amsmath but constructs also PGF/TikZ nodes under the cells, rows and columns. The final user can use these nodes directly with TikZ but the package provides also functionalities (using these nodes under the hood) for colored rectangles, rules, exterior row and columns, continuous dotted lines in the matrices, etc. It is compatible with booktabs but not with longtable.

Which packages are especially recommendable? A quick guide:

array is a universal talent for tuning whole columns by commands
tabularx is great for auto-sizing columns
booktabs is a must for professional-looking layout
longtable is very popular for multi-page tables.

Choose further packages depending on the required features.

Package conflicts

xtab and supertabular don't work together. Loading both would cause a conflict. xtab should be preferred, since it's written as an extension to supertabular.
According to the manual, arydshln has to be loaded after array, longtable, colortab, and colortbl, respectively. Such a problem occurred in this question: Cannot insert multirow within multicolumn
Also, arydshln conflicts with supertabular.
ltablex can interfere with tabularx uses in two-column documents (because it uses longtable which cannot simply be put in floats), see there.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Conflict between `booktabs` and `arydshln` packages

You could try the easybmat package, which makes it easy to put dashed lines inside matrices.

[Tex/LaTex] How to create a table with long text and which packages use

tabular

Here is a way to use a simple tabular with the enhancements offered by booktabs. Trying to learn multiple packages to do similar things all at once before you understand the basics is, I think, a recipe for confusion and frustration.

\documentclass[11pt]{book}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[spanish,mexico]{babel}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\begin{document}
  \begin{table}
    \centering% This is an environment - we probably don't want the extra spacing of center in addition to that added by table etc.
    \caption{``Utilidad y Derivación de las Emociones Primarias (Riso, W., 2008)''}

    \small
    \begin{tabular}{*{2}{p{.425\linewidth}}}% The target layout does not centre the text so we don't want \centering
      \toprule% nicer rules courtesy of booktabs - but then we need to drop the verticals 
      Emociones primarias &  Derivación de las emociones primarias \\\midrule% Note that there is no & before the first column - & only comes between columns so if you define n columns, you can have at most n-1 & symbols in any row
      \textbf{Dolor} & \textbf{Sufrimiento}\\% No need for 6 rows of space for each title!
      Avisa cuando un órgano físico está funcionando mal o está siendo agredido, para que sea reparado o defendido. & Indica que hay una estructura mental afectada o un apego irracional que debe ser trabajado.\\\midrule% the p{} setting automatically lets these be multi-line - we don't want multiple rows on top of that and this is simpler as TeX does the hard work for us
      \textbf{Miedo} & \textbf{Miedo psicológico}\\
      Protege ante un peligro real.& Indica que se ha dejado de actuar. La parálisis es sostenida por ideas irracionales.\\
      \bottomrule
    \end{tabular}
  \end{table}
\end{document}