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In papers I put the tables at the very end and do something like;

\begin{center} Insert Table~\ref{tbl:tab1_1} about here. \end{center}

in the body of the paper for a draft. When it comes to finalizing I'll copy and paste the tables into the body of the paper.

This is tedious. Is there a command thingy that I can place in the body of the TeXt to make the table "disappear" from the end of the paper and appear where I've placed the command?

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Why exactly do you place the tables in the end to begin with? How exactly is the disappear/appear thing supposed to happen and when is it supposed to happen? – Kristian Aug 19 '12 at 13:34
I believe that this is standard for working papers in the field of econometrics (this is what I see in 90% of working papers that I've viewed). Put the tables in the end until the paper is finalized. This is also how my co-author is working now so I have to work with that. I want to have all the tables in the end, then use a command in the body that references a particular table (say "Table 1"), then I want this command to make this "Table 1" disappear from the back of the paper, then appear where I've issued the command, so when I make the PDF it's as if the table was typed into the body. – user16208 Aug 19 '12 at 14:17
2  
I suggest you to write the table data on a separate file, one for each table and then you just use \input command to put the table. So, it will be easy to cut and paste those commands. Also, try to use the table environment with the \caption command. It is better. – Sigur Aug 19 '12 at 14:23
@Sigur (1) Your first sentence: Yes, good idea. Although my thesis is 26 tables so I might wait to see if another answer comes along. (2) Your second sentence: "It is better" - better than what exactly? – user16208 Aug 19 '12 at 14:25
@IssacM, sorry. I thought that you were using center for the tables. But you were using only to inform the place. Well, I believe that you are using the table environments, so you can make use of \listoftables. Good luck. – Sigur Aug 19 '12 at 14:31

2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

If you have a .tex file with the tables in the bottom and you need to get then moved, then I don't think there is a better way than then copy-paste method.

If the motivation for putting the tables in the bottom whilst editing is to make the .pdf file easier to navigate by not having huge tables in the middle of it all, then a solution could be to place

\newif\ifshowtables

in your preamble and then write your tables as

\ifshowtables
\begin{table}
...
\end{table}
\else
Here the awesome table will appear!
\fi

Then the table will be included if you include \showtablestrue in your preamble and the text will be included instead if you include \showtablesfalse in your preamble. You can also just remove the text and the \else, then it is only a matter of whether the table appears or not.

In my opinion this is not that complicated to remember, so if you are working with co-authors, then you might be able to convince them to use the same method.

This of course also works with other things than tables.

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Consider combining this solution with a previous comment by replacing the \begin{table} ... \end{table} block with \input{tableN} and then, at the end of your document, an if block that inputs all the tables when showtables is false. Then you have both versions with no cut and paste. – Ethan Bolker Aug 19 '12 at 21:07
up vote 2 down vote

Try the endfloat package. It is consistent with the finance/econ papers I read and only requires and on/off, plus a few other tweaks if you have special needs.

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