Series of long equations formated into a table with references

Question

I have a series of long equations, 12 of them, that I'm trying to format into a table. The table is something like:

\begin{tabular}{L{1.7cm} | L{1.8cm} | C{12.2cm} R{1cm}}
\toprule
\textbf{Label 1} & \textbf{Label 2} & \textbf{Equations} \\
\midrule
.....
.....
\end{tabular}

Initially I was using \begin{equation} \end{equation} and in some cases \begin{gather} \end{gather} for each equation. This gave me numbering for each and an \eqref{equation_label} which was handy for in text referencing. Since I can't use these wrappers inside of a table I switched them each to $equation$, however I've lost the ability to cross reference. I can be horrible and add a fourth column and manually add the numbers but I don't want to as keeping track of all the equation numbers is a pain in a large document.

Does anyone have a semi-easy way to number each equation for cross referencing within a table?

edit:

Here's a better (more complete) example of what I'm doing with two shorter equations:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}

\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{graphicx}

\usepackage{booktabs}

\usepackage{array}
\newcolumntype{L}[1]{>{\raggedright\let\newline\\\arraybackslash\hspace{0pt}}m{#1}}
\newcolumntype{C}[1]{>{\centering\let\newline\\\arraybackslash\hspace{0pt}}m{#1}}
\newcolumntype{R}[1]{>{\raggedleft\let\newline\\\arraybackslash\hspace{0pt}}m{#1}}

\title{Your Paper}
\author{You}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{L{1.7cm} | L{1.8cm} | C{9cm}}
\toprule
\textbf{Label 1} & \textbf{Label 2} & \textbf{Equations} \\
\midrule
Col1Lbl1 & Col2Lbl1 &
$\rho_{X,Y}= \frac{cov(X,Y)}{\sigma_X\sigma_Y}= \frac{E[(X-\mu_X)(Y-\mu_Y)]}{\sigma_X\sigma_Y}$\\
~ & ~ & ~ \\
Col1Lbl12 & Col2Lbl2 &
$H(X) = - \sum_{i=1}^n p(x_i) log_b p(x_i)$
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{document}

I would like the equation reference numbers added to right of each equations and be able to use \ref{} or \eqref{} in the text to reference a particular equation.

Answer 1

I must confess I'm not at all clear as to what the first two columns of your "table of equations" are supposed to contain. Your text seems to refer to them as "labels", but these labels must be somehow different from "regular" equation numbers, right?

If your main objective is to have all twelve equations in question placed on a page by themselves, starting at the top of the page, while still being able to cross-reference them using LaTeX's "normal" equation numbering system, you could try something like this, which relies on the afterpage package and its eponymous command \afterpage:

\usepackage{afterpage} % execute this command in the preamble
...
% later on, in the body of the document...
\afterpage{% defer execution of argument of `\afterpage to start of next page
% the following "dummy" table environment is optional
\begin{table}[t!] 
\caption{My twelve beautiful equations} % I'm sure you can come up with a better name
\label{tab:twelve-equations}
\end{table}
\begin{equation}\label{eq:firstoftwelve}
...
\end{equation} 
...
...
\begin{equation}\label{eq:lastoftwelve}
...
\end{equation} % end of final equation
%\clearpage %% optional, needed if you want no other material on this page
} % end of scope of \afterpage command

Note that this "works" even if the twelve equations end up taking more space than is available on a single page. If they don't fit on a single page, LaTeX's regular page breaking algorithm will be invoked.

Answer 2

I'm going to go ahead and answer my own question. However I'm going to upvote @Mico(s) answer as it's what led me to a solution.

The issue is that, for one reason or another, I can not format my equations as follows within the table:

    Col1Lbl1 & Col2Lbl1 &
    \begin{equation}\label{eq:firstoftwelve}
    \rho_{X,Y}= \frac{cov(X,Y)}{\sigma_X\sigma_Y}= \frac{E[(X-\mu_X)(Y-\mu_Y)]}{\sigma_X\sigma_Y}
    \end{equation}\\

instead I must:

    Col1Lbl1 & Col2Lbl1 &
    \begin{equation}\label{eq:firstoftwelve}\rho_{X,Y}= \frac{cov(X,Y)}{\sigma_X\sigma_Y}= \frac{E[(X-\mu_X)(Y-\mu_Y)]}{\sigma_X\sigma_Y}\end{equation}\\
~ & ~ & ~ \\

Note the lack of no newline after the \begin{equation}, I don't know why the formatting makes a difference within the table but it does.