Pdflatex document which is cropped to the largest content width and height?

Question

Is it possible to create a pdflatex document which

• contains several pages with tables (one table per page)
• and the page width for all pages of the pdf file is cropped to the width of the largest content (same for the height)?

I hope I was clear enough: e. g. the table on page 1 is 20 cm wide and 25 cm in height. All other pages contain tables of 19 cm width, but the table of page 10 has a height of 26 cm. So I'd like to be the page format of the whole document: 20 cm wide and 26 cm in height and all tables should be aligned in the top left corner of this page size )

Answer 1

Prepare a file such as

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}

\usepackage[pass]{geometry}
\pagestyle{empty}

\newsavebox{\tablebox}
\newlength{\maxwidth}
\newlength{\maxheight}

\newenvironment{ftabular}
  {\begin{lrbox}{\tablebox}\begin{tabular}}
  {\end{tabular}\end{lrbox}%
   \ifdim\dimexpr\ht\tablebox+\dp\tablebox\relax>\maxheight
     \global\maxheight=\dimexpr\ht\tablebox+\dp\tablebox\relax
   \fi
   \ifdim\wd\tablebox>\maxwidth
     \global\maxwidth=\wd\tablebox
   \fi}

\begin{document}

\input{tables}

\renewenvironment{ftabular}
  {\noindent\begin{tabular}}
  {\end{tabular}\newpage}

\pdfpageheight=\maxheight
\pdfpagewidth=\maxwidth

\newgeometry{margin=0pt}

\input{tables}
\end{document}

The file tables.tex will contain your tables as

\begin{ftabular}{lll}
abc & def & ghi
\end{ftabular}

\begin{ftabular}{llp{2cm}}
pippo & pluto & paperino va al mare e fa il bagno dieci volte
\end{ftabular}

The idea is to compile the file twice; the first time we gather the sizes, the second time we print the tables. Some more work is required if you need also captions.