From: ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: SUMMARY: tables
Date: 3 Oct 1992 04:51:31 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: almaak.usc.edu

This is a summary of tables in a TeXy world.  It is mostly based on
the TeX-Index.  I have used a few of the options as well.

A weakness I see in all these options is the inability to make text
flow around a float (like a table).  It should be possible to tell the
typsetting software that this float must always be "near" this
sentence, and for the rest the text should flow around it.  TeX cannot
do this.


LaTeX tables
------------

Latex has a `tabular' environment which is quite good in it's own
way.  It is quite flexible and does a wide range of tables.  The input
source code you write looks weird at first, but is not hard to write
once you understand the basics.

It does not do tables > 1 page.  It does not have decimal alignment.

You may be interested in `endfloat.sty'.  This avoid Latex's
irritating float mechanism by simply putting all floats at the end of
document.  `float.sty' is a improved treatment of floats.  `here.sty'
gives a implementation of [h] which may really work.

`hhline.sty' gives an improvement to \hline.

The style file dectab.sty gives LaTeX \tabular the ability to decimal
alignment.  dcolumn.sty and decalign.sty also does this.
With dectab you say `\dec 3.54' instead of `3.54'.  With decalign a
new column type is defined.  You say \begin{tabular}{|lcc@{.}r|} e.g.

\footnote{} does not work right away inside tables.  One way to avoid
this is to put the table into a minipage.  Alternatively you can say
\footnotemark at the place you want the mark and then say
\footnotetext{} outside the environment which dislikes footnotes.

supertab is like tabular, except that long tables are transparently
broken over many pages.  Table head and tail can be repeated on each
page.

tables.sty is a better package for producing complex tables.   I
didn't see decimal alignment mentioned in the manual.

tabls.sty improves the appearance of text in a table.

longtable by David Carlisle allows long tables which span many pages.

multirow.sty creates a multirow object in a table which spans many lines.

side.sty allows sideways (landscape) tables with latex.  They can be
flush top, bottom or vertically centered.

array.sty by Frank Mittelbach (of multicol fame) reimplements the
LaTeX array and tabular environments.  What does it do better?

bigtabular.sty by Denis Duchier does tables which can be spread over
many pages.

captcont.sty, bruggink.sty and zaccone.sty are all about table
captioning.

tabularx.sty is like tabular, except that you can ask the overall
table to be a certain width.  The extra space is spread over your
columns.


Plain tex
---------

eplain (by Karl Berry) is a major LaTeX-type package, and comes with
support for tables.  It has extensive documentation and examples.

The Texsis package (for plain) has good tables macros.  They can be
used by themselves too, just use the texsis/tables directory.

t2d4 is a not-free tables package by Michael Spivak.  Is it still sold
from anywhere?  It is considered very powerful.  Does it work with
LaTeX?  How good is it?  How much does it cost?

Michael Wichura (of pictex fame) has written a not-free tables
package.  It is available from PC TeX, Inc.  They are 415 388 8853.
How much does this cost?  How good is it?

Arvind Borde's book `TeX by Example' has some rudimentary tables
macros.  They are simple -- roughly 40 lines in all -- and hence a
good base for serious TeXing yourself.  They are adequate for simple
tables.  Check the files tbe{macros,example}.

stables.tex is a tables package for plain tex.



-- 
Ajay Shah, (213)749-8133, ajayshah@usc.edu