tabular

 \begin{tabular}[pos]{cols}
 column 1 entry & column 2 entry ... & column n entry \\
 ...
 ...
 \end{tabular}
or
 \begin{tabular*}{width}[pos]{cols}
 column 1 entry & column 2 entry ... & column n entry \\
 ...
 ...
 \end{tabular*}
Note that the *-form takes an additional width mandatory argument which specifies the width of the tabular environment; in the regular form the width is determined by LaTeX from the contents of the tabular environment.

These environments produce a box consisting of a sequence of rows of items, aligned vertically in columns. The mandatory and optional arguments consist of:

Note that \\ must be used to specify the end of each line of the table.

Aligning on decimal points: an example

In scientific tables it is often desirable to align the columns on a decimal point. This can be done using the @ col specifier and breaking the number into the integral part in a right-justified column and the fractional part in a left-justified column:
  The following input:          will display as:

  \begin{tabular}{r@{.}l}
  3&14159\\                         3.14159
  16&2\\                           16.2
  123$456\\ \end{tabular}         123.456  
Note that the decimal point is replaced by the column separator, & and that the @suppresses the intercolumn space

See also


See also table environment, array environment, tabbing environment.
Return to LaTeX Table of Contents
Revised by Sheldon Green, agxsg@giss.nasa.gov, 5 Jun 1995.