Color entire table

Question

How do I get an entire table to get a background color. I dont mean the indivual cells but the entire table to get a gray shade. Something like this:

Answer 1

I'd simply put the tabular inside a \colorbox:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs,xcolor,siunitx}
\definecolor{lightgray}{gray}{0.9}

\begin{document}
\begingroup\setlength{\fboxsep}{0pt}
\colorbox{lightgray}{%
  \begin{tabular}{l*{4}{S[table-format=3.2]}@{}}
  \toprule
  Method & \multicolumn{4}{c}{Recognition rate (\%) vs.\ illumination} \\
  \cmidrule{2-5}
  & \multicolumn{1}{c}{Subset 2} &
    \multicolumn{1}{c}{Subset 3} &
    \multicolumn{1}{c}{Subset 4} &
    \multicolumn{1}{c}{Subset 5} \\
  \midrule
  Linear subspace [9]  & 100.00 & 100.00 &  85.00 &  {n/a} \\
  Cones-attached [9]   & 100.00 & 100.00 &  91.40 &  {n/a} \\
  Cones-cast [9]       & 100.00 & 100.00 & 100.00 &  {n/a} \\
  PCA                  &  98.33 &  79.17 &  30.00 &  15.79 \\
  LTV${}+{}$PCA        & 100.00 &  99.17 &  96.43 &  92.11 \\
  Our method${}+{}$PCA & 100.00 & 100.00 & 100.00 & 100.00 \\
  \bottomrule
  \end{tabular}%
}\endgroup
\end{document}

The local setting of \fboxsep is needed to avoid padding.

Answer 2

I guess you can use the xcolor package as explained here, but instead of set up alternate table row colors, force to color odd and even rows using the same color:

\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\definecolor{lightgray}{gray}{0.9}
\rowcolors{1}{gray}{gray}

---

Here is you have a full working example:

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\definecolor{lightgray}{gray}{0.9}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}[ht]
\caption{default}
\begin{center}
\rowcolors{1}{lightgray}{lightgray}
\begin{tabular}{r|rrrrr}
  \hline
 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5 \\
  \hline
1 & 2.36 & 1.08 & -0.49 & -0.82 & -0.65 \\
  2 & -0.68 & -1.13 & -0.42 & -0.72 & 1.51 \\
  3 & -1.00 & 0.02 & -0.54 & 0.31 & 1.28 \\
  4 & -0.99 & -0.54 & 0.97 & -1.12 & 0.59 \\
  5 & -2.35 & -0.29 & -0.53 & 0.30 & -0.30 \\
  6 & -0.10 & 0.06 & -0.85 & 0.10 & -0.60 \\
  7 & 1.28 & -0.46 & 1.33 & -0.66 & -1.80 \\
  8 & 0.80 & 0.46 & 1.37 & 1.73 & 1.93 \\
  9 & -0.75 & 0.28 & 0.51 & 0.19 & 0.58 \\
  10 & -1.64 & -0.12 & -1.17 & -0.10 & -0.04 \\
   \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\end{table}
\end{document}

And the result:

---

EDIT: Following Mico's comment, there are two limitations:

1. The space around lines created by the booktabs package's \toprule, \midrule, \cmidrule, and \bottomrule commands and
2. Any intercolumn whitespace. E.g., if one specifies @{\extracolsep{\fill}} in the tabular* environment's second argument -- to force the overall width of the table to be equal to the environment's width argument (usually, but not necessarily, \textwidth) -- the extra intercolumn whitespace

won't be affected by the \rowcolor statement.