# table spanning only one column width in a multicol document

I have a two-column document and what to inset a table. My problem is that the some of the columns in the table overlaps into the other side column. I have found a question which deals with generating a column spanning two columns. But I want to make the table fit within a column width. Any suggestions would be great? Does one have to resize the text or manually specify the column width?

\documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[margin=2.5cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{amsfonts}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage[colaction]{multicol}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{lineno}
\usepackage{setspace}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\title{Table formatting}
\author{The geniuses at SE}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\doublespacing

\begin{multicols}{2}

\section{Introduction}
\lipsum[1-1]

\begin{center}
\begin{minipage}{\columnwidth}
\centering
\captionaboveof{table}{Distribution of XXX}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c}
\textbf{Sex} &  \textbf{[0-1]} & \textbf{[1--5)} & \textbf{[5--10)} & \textbf{[10--25)} & \textbf{25-50} & \textbf{[50+]} \\
\hline
M & 61\% & 28\% & 4\% & -\% & 6\% & x\% \\
F & 60\% & 25\% & 5\% & 3\% & 7\% & x\% \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{minipage}
\end{center}

\lipsum[1-2]

\end{multicols}

\end{document}


Here is one option, where you could just decrease the inter-column spacing; Instead of a regular \tabcolsep, I've reduced that to 35% of \tabcolsep:

\documentclass[10pt]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[margin=25mm,paper=a4paper]{geometry}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage[colaction]{multicol}
\usepackage{setspace}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\title{Table formatting}
\author{The geniuses at SE}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\doublespacing

\begin{multicols}{2}

\section{Introduction}
\lipsum[1-1]

%\addvspace{\intextsep}% You may want to add this...

\noindent
\begin{minipage}{\columnwidth}
\centering
\captionaboveof{table}{Distribution of XXX}
\setlength{\tabcolsep}{.35\tabcolsep}
\begin{tabular}{ *{7}{c} }
\toprule
\textbf{Sex} &  \textbf{[0-1]} & \textbf{[1--5)} & \textbf{[5--10)} & \textbf{[10--25)} & \textbf{[25-50)} & \textbf{[50+]} \\
\midrule
M & 61\% & 28\% & 4\% & -\% & 6\% & x\% \\
F & 60\% & 25\% & 5\% & 3\% & 7\% & x\% \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{minipage}


Since you included booktabs, I've used its rules.
• @lukeg: Alternative methods (this one included) are subjective and depends heavily on what you have in your table. Some people resize the entire tabular by wrapping it inside \resizebox{\columnwidth}{!}{...}. But that resizes everything and not everyone likes it. – Werner Jan 18 '16 at 22:32