Is there a package for automatically managing table headers and formatting?

Question

Is there a package for automatically managing table headers and formatting?

For example I don't want to have to manually embolden every header entry individually, not to mention the extra clutter that would introduce.

This is a general question, but if you prefer to have compilable example to apply the solution to, suppose I want the table headers of row 1 to be automatically emboldened:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackages{booktabs}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\begin{document}
        \begin{table}[h]
            \centering
            \begin{tabular}{l l l l}
            \toprule
            Experiment  &   Enzyme              &   Substrate   &       Enzyme inhibitor\\
            \midrule
            A           &   Trypsin             &   Casein      &       Trypsin inhibitor\\
            B           &   Chymotrypsin        &   Casein      &       Trypsin inhibitor\\
            C           &   Chymotrypsinogen    &   Casein      &       Trypsin inihibitor\\
            \bottomrule
            \end{tabular}
        \end{table}
\end{document}

Edit: this question is very similar to Make first row of table all bold but is subtly different, since I don't want to have to create new definitions or engage in any kind of programming. I just want a package that will handle that if possible, thanks.

Answer 1

The tabu package is your friend. Not only does it bundle many features from packages such as tabularx, longtable, ragged2e, it also comes with a \rowfont macro. Your example with the first line bold:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs,tabu}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}[h]
  \centering
  \begin{tabu}{l l l l}
    \toprule
    \rowfont[l]{\bfseries}
    Experiment & Enzyme           & Substrate & Enzyme  inhibitor \\
    \midrule
    A          & Trypsin          & Casein    & Trypsin inhibitor \\
    B          & Chymotrypsin     & Casein    & Trypsin inhibitor \\
    C          & Chymotrypsinogen & Casein    & Trypsin inhibitor \\
    \bottomrule
  \end{tabu}
\end{table}
\end{document}