Formatting tables so that they fit within page width

Question

I want to get a table that looks like

However, when using

\begin{tabular}{|p{2cm}|p{3cm}|p{3cm}|p{3cm}|}
\hline Time-Scale & Mechanical Machine State Variables & Electrical Machine  State Variables  & Power Electronics  State Variables  \\ 
\hline Mechanical Machine (Slowest)
& Dynamic & Instantaneous & Instantaneous \\ 
\hline Electrical Machine (Middle)
& Frozen & Dynamic & Instantaneous \\ 
\hline Power Electronics (Fastest)
& Frozen & Frozen & Dynamic \\ 
\hline 
\end{tabular}

I get a bad looking table:

How can I make the text in each box centered and how can I divide the text in one box into multiple lines? (When I tried using \ between words, it was treating that as a new table entry.)

From a previous post, I see that using tabularx instead of tabular is one possible solution. Is that the recommend solution?

Instead of manually entering new lines, is there a way to fix the column width and prevent words from appearing partly on the end of one line and partly on the beginning of the next?

Thank you,

Kevin

Answer 1

% arara: pdflatex

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array}
\newcommand{\specialcell}[1]{\begin{tabular}{@{}c@{}}#1\end{tabular}}

\begin{document}
\begin{table}
    \centering
    \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|}
        \hline 
        \bfseries Time-Scale & \bfseries\specialcell{Mechanical\\Machine State\\Variables} & \bfseries\specialcell{Electrical\\Machine  State\\Variables}  & \bfseries\specialcell{Power\\Electronics  State\\Variables}  \\ 
        \hline 
        \specialcell{Mechanical\\Machine\\(Slowest)} & Dynamic & Instantaneous & Instantaneous \\ 
        \hline 
        \specialcell{Electrical\\Machine\\(Middle)} & Frozen & Dynamic & Instantaneous \\ 
        \hline 
        \specialcell{Power\\Electronics\\(Fastest)} & Frozen & Frozen & Dynamic \\ 
        \hline 
    \end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}

---

Nicer to read would be:

\documentclass{article}
\newcommand{\specialcell}[1]{\begin{tabular}{@{}l@{}}#1\end{tabular}}
\usepackage{booktabs}

\begin{document}
\begin{table}
    \centering
    \begin{tabular}{*{4}{l}}
        \toprule 
        Time-Scale & \specialcell{Mechanical\\Machine State\\Variables} & \specialcell{Electrical\\Machine  State\\Variables}  & \specialcell{Power\\Electronics  State\\Variables}  \\ 
        \midrule 
        \specialcell{Mechanical\\Machine\\(Slowest)} & Dynamic & Instantaneous & Instantaneous \\\addlinespace 
        \specialcell{Electrical\\Machine\\(Middle)} & Frozen & Dynamic & Instantaneous \\\addlinespace
        \specialcell{Power\\Electronics\\(Fastest)} & Frozen & Frozen & Dynamic \\ 
        \bottomrule 
    \end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}