alignment of rows in tables

Question

Below is a sample of my table and I just can't make out why it is behaving the way it does. Before applying rowcolor everything works fine.

\documentclass[a4paper]{scrreprt}
\usepackage{siunitx,booktabs}
\usepackage{tabu}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{xcolor}

\begin{document}
\newcolumntype{Z}{S[round-mode=places,round-precision=1]}
\centering
\begin{tabu}{X[l]ZZZZ }
%\rowfont{\color{red}}
\toprule
{Farm Animal}&{Mean}&{S.d.}&{p50}\\
\midrule
Sheep & 40.96408 & 14.74988 & 17.0000 \\
Goats & 44.53074 & 12.77132 & 13.04183  \\  
Cows & 21.08170 & 23.65936 & 11.17796 \\        
Pigs & 37.43113 & 15.24949 & 61.66667 \\
%\rowfont{\color{blue}}
Donkeys & 10.84207 & 20.63621 & 10.66225 \\
Chicken & 14.28904 & 13.78381 & 23.99308 \\
%\rowfont{\color{green}}
Turkeys & 22.90579 & 22.32673 & 32.53234 \\
Horses & 24.93417 & 56.81986 & 12.96247 \\
Rabbits  & 32.15897 & 6.57493 & 12.17391 \\
Geese & 11.33306 & 5.74882 & 4.33333 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabu}
\end{document}

I get the following output:

However, I want to highlight certain rows using colours. It this that gives me strange results.

\documentclass[a4paper]{scrreprt}
\usepackage{siunitx,booktabs}
\usepackage{tabu}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{xcolor}

\begin{document}
\newcolumntype{Z}{S[round-mode=places,round-precision=1]}
\centering
\begin{tabu}{X[l]ZZZZ }
\rowfont{\color{red}}
\toprule
{Farm Animal}&{Mean}&{S.d.}&{p50}\\
\midrule
Sheep & 40.96408 & 14.74988 & 17.0000 \\
Goats & 44.53074 & 12.77132 & 13.04183  \\  
Cows & 21.08170 & 23.65936 & 11.17796 \\        
Pigs & 37.43113 & 15.24949 & 61.66667 \\
\rowfont{\color{blue}}
Donkeys & 10.84207 & 20.63621 & 10.66225 \\
Chicken & 14.28904 & 13.78381 & 23.99308 \\
\rowfont{\color{green}}
Turkeys & 22.90579 & 22.32673 & 32.53234 \\
Horses & 24.93417 & 56.81986 & 12.96247 \\
Rabbits  & 32.15897 & 6.57493 & 12.17391 \\
Geese & 11.33306 & 5.74882 & 4.33333 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabu}
\end{document}

Notice that now the Farm animal, Donkeys and Turkeys rows are misaligned after applying the colours. How can I have them coloured without the misalignments? thanks

Answer 1

You have to be more careful with color than fonts as to where you specify the change

\documentclass[a4paper]{scrreprt}
\usepackage{siunitx,booktabs}
\usepackage{tabu}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{xcolor}

\begin{document}
\newcolumntype{Z}{S[round-mode=places,round-precision=1]}
\centering
\begin{tabu}{X[l]ZZZZ }
\rowfont{\leavevmode\color{red}}%
\toprule
{Farm Animal}&{Mean}&{S.d.}&{p50}\\
\midrule
Sheep & 40.96408 & 14.74988 & 17.0000 \\
Goats & 44.53074 & 12.77132 & 13.04183  \\  
Cows & 21.08170 & 23.65936 & 11.17796 \\        
Pigs & 37.43113 & 15.24949 & 61.66667 \\
\rowfont{\leavevmode\color{blue}}%
Donkeys & 10.84207 & 20.63621 & 10.66225 \\
Chicken & 14.28904 & 13.78381 & 23.99308 \\
\rowfont{\leavevmode\color{green}}%
Turkeys & 22.90579 & 22.32673 & 32.53234 \\
Horses & 24.93417 & 56.81986 & 12.96247 \\
Rabbits  & 32.15897 & 6.57493 & 12.17391 \\
Geese & 11.33306 & 5.74882 & 4.33333 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabu}
\end{document}

See texdoc color (grfguide) the footnote on page 6....