Text running through table cell after forced linebreak

Question

I’m trying to fit some text in a table, but the text keeps running through the table cells. I’ve already specified a fixed column width for the text using the p{} command. Initially, this worked, but then I also needed some forced linebreaks and once I implemented that using a new command, the p{} was overruled somehow, and the text runs through the cells again. Can someone help me fix this problem? The code I used looks something like this:

    \begin{landscape}

    \newcommand{\cellenter}[2][l]{%

    \begin{tabular}[#1]{@{}l@{}}#2\end{tabular}}
    \begin{table}[t]\footnotesize 
    \caption{Caption}\label{table:table_cable_lay_2}
      \begin{tabular*}{1.4\textwidth}{| p{0.32\textwidth} | p{0.32\textwidth} | p{0.32\textwidth} | p{0.32\textwidth} |}
          \hline\hline
          \textbf{Scenarios} &\textbf{Advantages} &\textbf{Disadvantages} &\textbf{Remarks} \\ [0.5ex]
          \hline

          \textit{Title of the cell} This text remains within the cell width because there are no forced linebreaks in this cell.

          &\cellenter[t]{+ Advantage 1 \\ + Advantage 2}

          &\cellenter[t]{- Disadvantage 1 \\ - Disadvantage 2}

          &\cellenter[t]{ There is some text here that runs through the cell width. \\ There is some text here that runs through the cell width.} \\[1ex]
          \hline
      \end{tabular*}
    \end{table}
    \end{landscape}

The pdf output that I get looks like this:

Answer 1

It is not clear what the intention of your \cellcenter is but it puts all its content into an inner tabular l column. l columns never linebreak they are always set to their natural width as a single line.

You can use a blank line to start a new paragraph within the table cells or \newline if you want a forced break without a new paragraph.

---

I fixed a few other things in your markup at the same time: (Using math mode to get matching +/ and using tabular rather than tabular* as you had no stretching between columns)

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pdflscape}

\begin{document}

   \begin{landscape}

    \begin{table}[t]\footnotesize 
    \caption{Caption}\label{table:table_cable_lay_2}
      \begin{tabular}{| p{0.32\textwidth} | p{0.32\textwidth} | p{0.32\textwidth} | p{0.32\textwidth} |}
          \hline\hline
          \textbf{Scenarios} &\textbf{Advantages} &\textbf{Disadvantages} &\textbf{Remarks} \\ [0.5ex]
          \hline

          \textit{Title of the cell} This text remains within the cell width because there are no forced linebreaks in this cell.

          &$+$ Advantage 1 \par  $+$ Advantage 2

          &$-$ Disadvantage 1 \par $-$ Disadvantage 2

          &There is some text here that runs through the cell width. \par There is some text here that runs through the cell width. \\[1ex]
          \hline
      \end{tabular}
    \end{table}
    \end{landscape}

\end{document}

---

To control alignment within the cells it is easiest to add

 \usepackage{array}

then you can inject \raggedright into each entry. If I understand your comment correctly you could use

\begin{tabular}{|%
>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}p{0.32\textwidth}|%
p{0.32\textwidth}|%
p{0.32\textwidth}|%
>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}p{0.32\textwidth}|%
}

or did you mean:

\begin{tabular}{|%
p{0.32\textwidth}|%
>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}p{0.32\textwidth}|%
>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}p{0.32\textwidth}|%
p{0.32\textwidth}|%
}