resize font and images in a table

Question

I have a big font size document where i want to add 4*9 table containing images. I used resizebox to automatically reduce the font size and the images to fit the cell, and to force the table to be wide as the textwidth and with height a bit less than the page height.

The problem is that the text looks weird after the resizing as the resizing vertically stretches the text.

Is there any solution?

\documentclass[48pt,oneside,a4paper,extrafontsizes]{memoir}
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}
\begin{document}
  \begin{table*}[h!]\centering
    \resizebox{\textwidth}{0.4\textheight}{
            \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|}
                    \hline\noalign{}
                    Chair&
                    air&
                    international&
                    Ali
                    \\\hline
                    latex &latex &latex &latex\\\hline
                    latex &latex &latex &latex\\\hline
                    latex &latex &latex &latex\\\hline
                    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth,height=0.2\textwidth]{demo}
                    &\includegraphics[width=\linewidth,height=0.2\textwidth]{demo}
                    &\includegraphics[width=\linewidth,height=0.2\textwidth]{demo}
                    &\includegraphics[width=\linewidth,height=0.2\textwidth]{demo}\\\hline
                    Chair&
                    air&
                    international&
                    Ali
                    \\\hline
                    Chair&
                    air&
                    international&
                    Ali
                    \\\hline
                    latex &latex &latex &latex\\\hline
                    latex &latex &latex &latex\\\hline
            \end{tabular}}
    \end{table*}

 \end{document}

Answer 1

I tried expanding on the comments (I thank @StevenB.Segletes and @DavidCarlisle) and:

1. removed the 0.4\textheight to keep the font aspect ratio
2. removed the [h!] which is not to be used with table*
3. removed the height of the image to keep the aspect ratio (you could choose the other one)

Then I also:

4. used the booktabs package for fancy lines
5. used the array package (mainly to suppress the extra external separations with @{})
6. removed all vertical separators
7. refactored the horizontal separators.

I am now ready to propose two solutions. The "natural" one (which I think looks the best)

\documentclass[48pt,oneside,a4paper,extrafontsizes]{memoir}
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}
\usepackage{booktabs,array}
\begin{document}
  \begin{table*}\centering

    \resizebox{\textwidth}{!}{
            \begin{tabular}{@{}cccc@{}}
                    \toprule                    Chair&
                    air&
                    international&
                    Ali
                    \\\midrule
                    latex &latex &latex &latex\\
                    latex &latex &latex &latex\\
                    latex &latex &latex &latex\\
                    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{demo}
                    &\includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{demo}
                    &\includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{demo}
                    &\includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{demo}\\
                    Chair&
                    air&
                    international&
                    Ali
                    \\
                    Chair&
                    air&
                    international&
                    Ali
                    \\
                    latex &latex &latex &latex\\
                    latex &latex &latex &latex\\\bottomrule
            \end{tabular}}
    \end{table*}

 \end{document}

This table looks already ok for me, and way less dense than before. Should you feel it too dense still, I can propose you one with the array stretched, the line:

 \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.4}

Basically inserts vertical spacing between the lines. Please feel free to readjust it to obtain what you want. I still prefer the first example

\documentclass[48pt,oneside,a4paper,extrafontsizes]{memoir}
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}
\usepackage{booktabs,array}
\begin{document}
  \begin{table*}\centering
  \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.4}
    \resizebox{\textwidth}{!}{
            \begin{tabular}{@{}cccc@{}}
                    \toprule                    Chair&
                    air&
                    international&
                    Ali
                    \\\midrule
                    latex &latex &latex &latex\\
                    latex &latex &latex &latex\\
                    latex &latex &latex &latex\\
                    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{demo}
                    &\includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{demo}
                    &\includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{demo}
                    &\includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{demo}\\
                    Chair&
                    air&
                    international&
                    Ali
                    \\
                    Chair&
                    air&
                    international&
                    Ali
                    \\
                    latex &latex &latex &latex\\
                    latex &latex &latex &latex\\\bottomrule
            \end{tabular}}
    \end{table*}

 \end{document}