Enumerate within a longtable

Question

I have been looking through a couple questions, but cant seem to find the answer to my question. I am trying to create a two column table that spans several pages consisting of two enumerate environments that have somewhere around 20 items each. Even with using longtable, I still only get a table that only runs for one page. What am I doing wrong?

Here is a code snipped:

    \begin{longtable}{p{0.4\textwidth}|p{0.4\textwidth}}
    \multicolumn{1}{c|}{FitsFilter} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{Filter} \\
    \hline
     \begin{enumerate}
    \item Read in necessary data from the FITS header and files
    \item Define pretrigger range (ilzero) as a function of the sweeplength
    and the hardware trigger channel
    \item Read in sweep (sweep(i))
    \item For iclass=2

    \begin{enumerate}
    \item Subtract the y-offset (yinit) and convert to AD units (divide by $\Delta$V
    {[}V/AD unit{]}) 
    \item Shift (shift()) to common trigger channel (hardware trigger channel
    (nchst)) from calculated trigger channel (tfb)

    \begin{enumerate}
    \item Window data with cosine window
    \item FFT to f-space
    \item Shift the channel
    \item Inverse FFT to t-domain
    \item Divide resulting time-domain pulse by the size of the sweep length
    \end{enumerate}
    \item Accumulate 400 pulses (scum) = $S_{cum}(t)$
    \end{enumerate}
    \item For iclass=4
    ....

On another note, how do I change the width of the table, so that it covers more of the page.

Answer 1

You're doing nothing wrong; longtable can split a tabular only between cells: each cell is an indivisible object and cannot be split across pages.

You can cover all of the page by

\begin{longtable}{@{}p{\dimexpr.5\textwidth-\tabcolsep-0.2pt\relax}|
                     p{\dimexpr.5\textwidth-\tabcolsep-0.2pt\relax}@{}}