LATEX has a simple method for generating all sorts of
tables. You give it one command to tell it how to set up the table
and then give it the data. You specify how many columns the table is
going to have, what to do to the data within each column as well as
how to separate each column. When you enter the data you give one row
at a time. Each data field is separated by ``&'' and the end
of a row is signaled by ``\\''. Here are several examples of
what is possible and how to create them.
| a | b | c |
| aa | bb | cccccc |
| aaa | bbb | ccc |
This is a table with three columns. In the first column the data are
centered, in the second they are left justified and in the third they
are right justified. This was done by entering {clr}.
Changing what is in these curly braces changes the number of columns
and how each one is formatted. The previous example was created with
the following text. Notice that the line breaks in the typed text
make no difference to LATEX. Rows are separated by the \\
character and the columns within the rows are separated by the &
character.
\begin{tabular}{clr}
a& b& c\\ aa& bb& cccccc\\
aaa&
bbb& ccc\\
\end{tabular}
You can also have boxes around the table and lines separating
the columns if you like. LATEX will put vertical lines wherever
you put a | in the column specifications. LATEX has two
commands for creating horizontal lines in tables. \hline creates a
horizontal line across the whole table. \cline{m-n} creates a
horizontal line from the beginning of column m to the end of
column n.
| a | b | c |
| aa | bb | cc |
| aaa | bbb | ccc |
This was created using the following commands:
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{||c|l||r||}\hline
a& b& c\\ \cline{2-3} aa& bb& cc\\ \hline
aaa&
bbb& ccc\\ \hline\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{center}