# Font size of table much bigger than rest of text

I have created a table (two rows, four columns) in a seperate .tex file. The table is smaller than the text width, so I stretch it to the text width. Unfortunately, the font size is much bigger than the font size of the rest of my text. This also appears when I don't stretch the table.

How can I get the same font size of my table as with the rest of my text or is this not usual?

Here is my table (table.tex):

\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.5}
\begin{tabular}{cccc}\toprule
~ & \textbf{Col1} & \textbf{Col2} & \textbf{Col3} \\ \midrule
$\beta = 1$ & 1234 (0.01234) & 4.524 (0.2345) & -0.54 (0.0423) \\ \midrule
$\beta = 2$ & 0.0345 (0.023) & 0.0012(0.0125) & -0.0161 (0.0174) \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}


And I include the table in the following way:

\begin{table}[!htbp]
\caption[Caption]{This is my caption.}
\centering
\resizebox{\textwidth}{!}{\input{table}}
\end{table}

• \resizebox stretches anything, so what do you expect? ;-) If you want to have a \textwidth wide table, use tabularx for example. And please don't post such fragments only. – user31729 Jul 8 '16 at 15:28
• never use \resizebox on tables, otherwise you get what you describe. – David Carlisle Jul 8 '16 at 15:58

The following example will fix the problem:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\newcolumntype{C}{>{\small\centering\arraybackslash}X}

\begin{document}
\parindent=0pt
\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.5}
\lipsum[1-2]

\begin{table}[!htbp]
\caption[Caption]{This is my caption.}
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{CCCC}\toprule
~ & \textbf{Col1} & \textbf{Col2} & \textbf{Col3} \\ \midrule
$\beta = 1$ & 1234 (0.01234) & 4.524 (0.2345) & -0.54 (0.0423) \\ \midrule
$\beta = 2$ & 0.0345 (0.023) & 0.0012(0.0125) & -0.0161 (0.0174) \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabularx}
\end{table}
\end{document}


The \resizebox will resize and will make the fonts bigger. Hence, use tabularx package with C column specifier. The C column specifier is defined using \newcolumntype command, which sets the content in center.

• Thank you very much. This worked very well. I have another bigger table with 7 columns. Some of the columns are again centered but some are left aligned and for one column I'm using p{7cm}. This table is wider than the text width (and also pretty long so landscape does also not work) . If I'm using resizebox to resize it to text width the fonts get smaller but I think there is no way without making the fonts smaller (otherwise it does not fit into the page). How can I use your approach in this case (also for the left aligned and p{7cm} columns) ? – machinery Jul 8 '16 at 18:18