# Which tabular packages do which tasks and which packages conflict?

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?]

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I agree with you that this question should be CW, as I assume there's not a single answer but many users may freely contribute their knowledge and experience. So I converted it to CW. –  Stefan Kottwitz Mar 4 '11 at 18:11
Such questions are usually answered by reading (the abstracts in) the manuals of the mentioned packages. –  Thorsten Donig Mar 5 '11 at 9:23
@Thorsten Good point. I've changed the emphasis of the question. What the abstracts won't tell you is which packages conflict –  Seamus Mar 5 '11 at 11:43
@Thorsten, @Seamus: I don't see the point. It's a great question, Seamus, and it's very valuable to have this overview here since that's a lot quicker to look through than a bunch of (abstracts of) manuals. –  Hendrik Vogt Mar 5 '11 at 22:27
I just saw this question because it had been bumped up for some reason. I thought "huh, that's a great question"... I'd totally forgotten that I had asked it! –  Seamus Jun 23 '11 at 10:56

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

## Overview of packages

Basic packages

Multi-page tables

Captioning and notes

Science

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

Color and fancy features

All-rounder

• tabu is a single package that provides much of the functionality of many of the above packages.

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.

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@lockstep and @Alan Munn contributed most of that nice list in the tag wiki, which has been the start. @Alan Munn: Sorry, didn't see this first, when I checked just the excerpt history instead of the main one, and {tabular} is gone. –  Stefan Kottwitz Mar 4 '11 at 21:14
Alan Munn did most of the work -- I only contributed a little copying and pasting. –  lockstep Mar 4 '11 at 23:50
Brilliant. Thanks for the work guys! Perhaps to make this question more than just a copy of the tag wiki, let's make it about which tabular packages conflict. –  Seamus Mar 5 '11 at 11:44
I'd submit my package to "Multi-page tables": cals: Multi-page tables with spanned cells and decorations –  olpa Jun 21 '13 at 13:50

cellspace is a very useful package to add, for example, to booktabs. With these two packages, you'll get very fine results:

This package is intended to allow automatic spacing out of the lines of an array. People often complain about text touching the \hline of a tabular when it is too high or too deep.