Fit this table to page width

Question

First of all, I am starting in LaTeX, so please excuse for any beginner's mistake.

I know this question seems to be recurrent here, but I couldn't find any solution to my problem.

I often times have a problem where a table does not fit the margins of the document. Therefore, I am curious to know: what is the general best strategy to make a table fit the page width?

I am really focused on switching from Word to LaTeX, and satisfied for most of the tasks, except for when I have to insert a table, where sometimes I feel like I am wasting too much time.

Specifically, this is the table I am grasping with:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}

% Load required packages
\usepackage{siunitx}                                            % for units
\usepackage[left=1.5in,right=1in,top=1in,bottom=1in]{geometry}  % specify margins
\usepackage{float}                                              % prevent figures to be moved to a different page
\usepackage{booktabs}                                           % for better looking tables
\usepackage{caption}                                            % to increase space between table and caption
\captionsetup[table]{skip=10pt}                                 % reduce space between table and its title

\begin{document}

\begin{table}[H]
\centering
\caption{List of CMIP5 global models used in this study, showing horizontal resolution}
\label{cmip5-models}
\begin{tabular}{@{}lcc@{}}
\toprule
\multicolumn{1}{c}{\textbf{Model acronym}} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{\textbf{Modelling centre}} & \textbf{\begin{tabular}[c]{@{}c@{}}Atmospheric component \\ resolution (lat/lon)\end{tabular}} \\ \midrule
CanESM2                 & Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis     &  2.8\si{\degree} x 2.8\si{\degree}        \\
GFDL-ESM2M              & NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory             &  2.0\si{\degree} x 2.5\si{\degree}        \\
INMCM4                  & Institute for Numerical Mathematics                    &  1.5\si{\degree} x 2.0\si{\degree}        \\
NorESM1-M               & Norwegian Climate Centre                               &  1.9\si{\degree} x 2.5\si{\degree}        \\
MRI-CGCM3               & Meteorological Research Institute                      &  1.1\si{\degree} x 1.1\si{\degree}        \\ \bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{document}

There is more text in the same page as the table, so rotating that page as is not an option for me.

Any tip much appreciated.

Answer 1

This is only a small suggestion:

Use special wrapping column types, defined with \newcolumntype (see the definitions below) for left or centered columns.

It's possible to say *{2}{your column type} in order to repeat the same column type twice (or use another number ;-))

\documentclass[12pt]{article}

% Load required packages
\usepackage{siunitx}                                            % for units
\usepackage[left=1.5in,right=1in,top=1in,bottom=1in]{geometry}  % specify margins
\usepackage{float}                                              % prevent figures to be moved to a different page
\usepackage{booktabs}                                           % for better looking tables
\usepackage{caption}                                            % to increase space between table and caption
\usepackage{array}
\captionsetup[table]{skip=10pt}                                 % reduce space between table and its title


\newcolumntype{C}[1]{>{\centering\arraybackslash}p{#1}}
\newcolumntype{R}[1]{>{\raggedleft\arraybackslash}p{#1}}
\newcolumntype{L}[1]{>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}p{#1}}


\begin{document}

\begin{table}[H]
\centering
\caption{List of CMIP5 global models used in this study, showing horizontal resolution}
\label{cmip5-models}
\begin{tabular}{@{}*{2}{L{0.25\textwidth}}C{0.4\textwidth}@{}}
\toprule
\multicolumn{1}{c}{\textbf{Model acronym}} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{\textbf{Modelling centre}} & \textbf{Atmospheric component resolution (lat/lon)} \\ \midrule
CanESM2                 & Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis     &  2.8\si{\degree} x 2.8\si{\degree}        \\
GFDL-ESM2M              & NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory             &  2.0\si{\degree} x 2.5\si{\degree}        \\
INMCM4                  & Institute for Numerical Mathematics                    &  1.5\si{\degree} x 2.0\si{\degree}        \\
NorESM1-M               & Norwegian Climate Centre                               &  1.9\si{\degree} x 2.5\si{\degree}        \\
MRI-CGCM3               & Meteorological Research Institute                      &  1.1\si{\degree} x 1.1\si{\degree}        \\ \bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{document}

Answer 2

Considering you condition of placing table, there are two solution:

• select so small fonts, that table can fit within text width
• allowed line breaks in cells qith loong text.

For second posibilities is advisable solution . With help of \tabularx (for fit table into text width and ability to broke cell content into more lines) and `makecell`` (for simple setting of columns header) I obtain the following:

MWE is:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
% Load required packages
\usepackage{siunitx}                                            % for units
\usepackage[left=1.5in,right=1in,top=1in,bottom=1in]{geometry}  % specify margins
\usepackage{float}                                              % prevent figures to be moved to a different page
\usepackage{booktabs,makecell,tabularx}                                           \renewcommand\theadfont{\bfseries}
\usepackage{ragged2e}                                           % for better looking tables
\usepackage{caption}                                            % to increase space between table and caption
\captionsetup[table]{skip=10pt}                                 % reduce space between table and its title

\usepackage{showframe}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}[h]
\centering
\caption{List of CMIP5 global models used in this study, showing horizontal resolution}
\label{cmip5-models}
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{l >{\RaggedRight\arraybackslash}X c}
    \toprule
\thead{Model acronym} 
            & \thead{Modelling centre} 
                & \thead{Atmospheric component \\ resolution (lat/lon)}     \\ 
    \midrule
CanESM2     &   Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis
                &   2.8\si{\degree} x 2.8\si{\degree}                       \\
GFDL-ESM2M  &   NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory             
                &   2.0\si{\degree} x 2.5\si{\degree}                       \\
INMCM4      & Institute for Numerical Mathematics
                &   1.5\si{\degree} x 2.0\si{\degree}                       \\
NorESM1-M   &   Norwegian Climate Centre                               
                &   1.9\si{\degree} x 2.5\si{\degree}                       \\
MRI-CGCM3   &   Meteorological Research Institute                      
                &                   1.1\si{\degree} x 1.1\si{\degree}       \\ 
    \bottomrule
\end{tabularx}
\end{table}

\end{document}