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I am trying to generate a normal table, but some columns have long lines and this made the table go outside the page margin. How can I adjust the table width

\documentclass[letterpaper,oneside,12pt]{book}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}[htb]
\centering
\vspace{0.5cm}
\caption{\small{Comparison between GPS and INS characteristics}}
    \vspace{0.5cm}
     \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.5}
    \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}\hline 
                    & GPS                                     & INS                                      \\\hline\hline
                    & Errors are bounded                      & High data rate                           \\
      Advantages    & Long term accuracy                      & Self-contained and independent of jamming\\\hline
                    & Low data rate                           &                                          \\
      Disadvantages & Susceptible to jamming and interference & Errors grow with time                    \\
                    & Fails if no sufficient coverage         & Higher cost for higher quality           \\\hline \hline
  \end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{document}
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1 Answer 1

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If you allow multi lie cells than you can easily fit in text width with:

\documentclass[letterpaper,oneside,12pt]{book}
    \usepackage{tabularx}
    \begin{document}
\begin{table}[htb]
\centering
\vspace{0.5cm}
\caption{\small{Comparison between GPS and INS characteristics}}
    \vspace{0.5cm}
     \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.5}
\begin{tabularx}{\hsize}{|l|X|X|}\hline
                & GPS                   & INS                   \\\hline\hline
                & Errors are bounded    & High data rate        \\
Advantages      & Long term accuracy    & Self-contained and independent of jamming
                                                                \\\hline
                & Low data rate         &                       \\
Disadvantages   & Susceptible to jamming and interference 
                                        & Errors grow with time \\
                & Fails if no sufficient coverage         
                                        & Higher cost for higher quality
                                                                \\\hline \hline
  \end{tabularx}
\end{table}
    \end{document}

enter image description here

But your table I will wrote differently: without vertical lines, horizontal lines with different thickness ... something like this:

\documentclass[letterpaper,oneside,12pt]{book}
    \usepackage{tabularx,booktabs,makecell,multirow}
    \newcolumntype{L}{>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}X}
    \renewcommand\theadfont{\bfseries}

    \begin{document}
\begin{table}[htb]
\centering
\caption{Comparison between GPS and INS characteristics}
\begin{tabularx}{\hsize}{@{}l
                        >{\setlength\hsize{0.9\hsize}}L
                        >{\setlength\hsize{1.1\hsize}}L@{}}
    \toprule
    & \thead{GPS}           & \thead{INS}                   \\
    \midrule
\multirow{3}{*}{Advantages}
    &   Errors are bounded\newline
        Long term accuracy
            &   High data rate\newline
                Self-contained and independent of jamming   \\
    \cmidrule{2-3}
\multirow{3}{*}{Disadvantages}
    &   Low data rate\newline
        Susceptible to jamming and interference
            &   Errors grow with time\newline
                Fails if no sufficient coverage\newline
                Higher cost for higher quality              \\
    \bottomrule
  \end{tabularx}
\end{table}
    \end{document}

and obtain: enter image description here

For caption layout (now was not in my consideration} I will exploit posibilities of caption packages.

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  • Thanks Zarko, your first solution worked perfect. Also, I like your elegant way for the table, but it produced 20 errors with me knowing that I used the package \usepackage{tabularx}
    – Mohamed Elsheikh
    May 24, 2015 at 16:46
  • Huh, at copyng of code from my editor by accident I lost first four lines of code ... I correct this now. It should work without errors ...
    – Zarko
    May 24, 2015 at 17:04
  • I'm glad to help you. Since you accept my answer, is it worth to rise points for it?
    – Zarko
    May 24, 2015 at 18:02
  • Sure Zarko, but I haven't got this privileges yet as this is my first question and waiting for more reputation points!
    – Mohamed Elsheikh
    May 25, 2015 at 3:41

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