# How to increase the font size of the tables contents in latex?

The MWE is as follows. When I compile the below mentioned code it results in correct output, but the generated output is very tiny. Is there any way to increase the font size of the table cells, while maintaining all the contents. Any help is appreciated.

\begin{table}[h]
\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.7}
\tcaption{Descriptive statistics of some numerical variables of the used dataset.}
\label{t0}

\scalebox{0.52}
{

\begin{tabular}{llccccccc}
\hline
Variable name & Variable description & N & Missing & Mean & Median & Std. Dev. & Min & Max\\
\hline
Actual\_Effort (in PM) & Total development effort (in PM) & 10 & 0 & 7014.91 & 3363.47 & 7931.52 & 377.8 & 22479.3\\
No.of.Processes & Total number of processes for an application & 10 & 0 & 2.9 & 2.5 & 1.96 & 1 & 7\\
No.of.Tasks & Total number of tasks for processes & 10 & 0 & 6.9 & 5.5 & 4.58 & 2 & 15\\
TCC & Total size based on the definition of processes and tasks of an application & 10 & 0 & 975.7 & 539 & 1027.62 & 74 & 2890\\
\hline\\

\end{tabular}
}

\end{table}

• Please eliminate unproductive guesswork as to which packages might define which macros (e.g., \scalebox and \tcaption). Ideally, you would provide all commands that make the code fully compilable right away -- including information about the width of the the text block, the font size, and the font itself. – Mico Mar 16 '16 at 16:36
• @Mico. Fine. \tcaption can not be eliminated as the same is provided by the journal template. But when I eliminate the \scalebox then the contents of tables are scattered. – M S Mar 16 '16 at 16:38
• Please note that I did not ask you to eliminate \thead. Instead, do provide information about the template you're using. Presumably, the template either defines the macro \thead itself or loads a pakage that defines \thead. – Mico Mar 16 '16 at 16:45
• Journal is Journal of Web Engineering. – M S Mar 16 '16 at 16:47
• why have you got \scalebox{0.52} around the table if you don't want to shrink the fonts to an impossibly small to read size? – David Carlisle Mar 16 '16 at 19:24

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage[frenchb]{babel}
%\usepackage{showframe}
\usepackage[a4paper, margin={1cm,1cm}]{geometry}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}[h]
\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.7}
\caption{Descriptive statistics of some numerical variables of the used dataset.}
\label{t0}

\begin{tabular}{p{2cm}p{5cm}ccccccc}
\hline
Variable name & Variable description & N & Missing & Mean & Median & Std. Dev. & Min & Max\\
\hline
Actual\_Effort (in PM) & Total development effort (in PM) & 10 & 0 & 7014.91 & 3363.47 & 7931.52 & 377.8 & 22479.3\\
No.of.Processes & Total number of processes for an application & 10 & 0 & 2.9 & 2.5 & 1.96 & 1 & 7\\
No.of.Tasks & Total number of tasks for processes & 10 & 0 & 6.9 & 5.5 & 4.58 & 2 & 15\\
TCC & Total size based on the definition of processes and tasks of an application & 10 & 0 & 975.7 & 539 & 1027.62 & 74 & 2890\\
\hline\\

\end{tabular}

\end{table}
\end{document}


• Thank you. But how to do this without adjusting the margins and setting the page as A4. If we adjust the page size this will violate the journal regulations. – M S Mar 16 '16 at 16:44
• @SibaMishra, what do you exactly do ? If you want to increase the font size, it will ake more place. You must reduce the witdth of the columns using p parameter – flav Mar 16 '16 at 16:46
• @SibaMishra, provide us a complete compilable example – flav Mar 16 '16 at 16:47
• when i used your above mentioned tricks i got the following output. The print screen is attached – M S Mar 16 '16 at 16:51

Here is a solution with \small as font size, and tabularx. I loaded the caption package for a better vertical skip between caption and table, booktabs to have some padding around horizontal rules and makecell for line breaks in ordinary cells. Finally I slightly reduced the value of tabcolsep. Comment aside: you should load the french option of babel via the documentclass options.

\documentclass[french]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage[showframe]{geometry}
\usepackage{array, tabularx, caption, makecell, booktabs}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}[h]
\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.7}\setlength\tabcolsep{4pt}
\caption{Descriptive statistics of some numerical variables of the used dataset.}
\label{t0}
\small
\begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{@{}l>{\raggedright}X*{7}{c}@{}}%
\toprule
Variable name & \makecell{Variable description} & N & Missing & Mean & Median & Std. Dev. & Min & Max \\
\midrule
\makecell[lt]{Actual\_Effort \\ (in PM)} &{Total development effort\\ (in PM)} & 10 & 0 & 7014.91 & 3363.47 & 7931.52 & 377.8 & 22479.3\\
No.of.Processes & {Total number of processes\\ for an application} & 10 & 0 & 2.9 & 2.5 & 1.96 & 1 & 7\\
No.of.Tasks & Total number of tasks for processes & 10 & 0 & 6.9 & 5.5 & 4.58 & 2 & 15 \\
TCC & Total size based on the definition of processes and tasks of an application & 10 & 0 & 975.7 & 539 & 1027.62 & 74 & 2890 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabularx}
\end{table}

\end{document}