How to split cell text into multiline in table?

Question

I'm writing a paper using the ACM double column template, and I have a table which I want to fit to just one column, and in order to do so, I want to split the text inside the cells to multiple lines. I have the following code segment:

\documentclass{paper}
\begin{document}

\begin{table}[thb]
\centering
\begin{tabular}{|l|c|l|} \hline
\textbf{Col1} & \textbf{Col2} & \textbf{Col3} \\ \hline
This is a \\very long line \\of text & Short text & Another long \\line of text \\ \hline
$\pi$ & 1 in 5& Common in math\\ 
\hline\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{document}

But, what it gives me an output which is not quite right, as can be seen below.

First of all, the second part of the text of the last column is pushed into the first column. Then, also the last columns borders are not full. Any idea how to split a text to multiline in table cell?

Answer 1

Package tabularx is your friend:

\documentclass[twocolumn]{paper}
\usepackage{tabularx}
    \newcolumntype{L}{>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}X}

\begin{document}
    \begin{table}
    \centering
\begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{|L|c|L|} 
    \hline
\textbf{Col1} & \textbf{Col2} & \textbf{Col3} \\ 
    \hline
This is a very long line of text & Short text & Another long line of text \\ 
    \hline
$\pi$ & 1 in 5& Common in math\\
    \hline
\end{tabularx}
    \end{table}
\end{document}

Answer 2

If you want to control line breaks in cells, you can use the \makecell command from the homonymous package. In addition, it has tools to add some vertical padding to cells:

\documentclass{paper}

\usepackage{array, makecell} %

\begin{document}

\begin{table}[thb]
\centering\renewcommand\cellalign{lc}
\setcellgapes{3pt}\makegapedcells
\begin{tabular}{|l|c|l|} \hline
\textbf{Col1} & \textbf{Col2} & \textbf{Col3} \\ \hline
\makecell{This is a \\very long line \\of text} & Short text &\makecell{ Another long \\line of text} \\ \hline
$\pi$ & 1 in 5& Common in math\\
\hline\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{document} 

Answer 3

Your wrong column alignment results from missing column delimiters (&) in your source code and can be fixed easily. This also fixes the broken vertical lines.

\begin{table}[thb]
    \centering
    \begin{tabular}{|l|c|l|}
        \hline
        \textbf{Col1}  & \textbf{Col2} & \textbf{Col3}  \\ \hline
        This is a      &               &    \\ % <===== note the empty cells in this line
        very long line &  Short text   & Another long   \\
        of text        &               &  line of text\\ \hline % <===== and in this
        $\pi$          &    1 in 5     & Common in math \\ \hline
    \end{tabular}
\end{table}

A less manual way would be to use the p column type, but you have to specify the column width and LaTeX will do the linebreaks for you, but your last cell will probably also break:

\begin{table}[thb]
    \centering
    \begin{tabular}{|p{1.8cm}|c|p{2cm}|}
        \hline
        \textbf{Col1}                                                                & \textbf{Col2} & \textbf{Col3}                                                         \\ \hline
        This is a very long line of text &  Short text   & Another long line of text \\ \hline
        $\pi$                                                                        &    1 in 5     & Common in math                                                        \\ \hline
    \end{tabular}
\end{table}

Or you can use the multirow package. Load \usepackage{multirow} in your preamble {anywhere between \documentclass{paper} and \begin{document}, and then you can do:

\begin{table}[thb]
\centering
\begin{tabular}{|l|c|l|}
    \hline
    \textbf{Col1}                                                     & \textbf{Col2} & \textbf{Col3}                                            \\ \hline
    \multirow{3}{*}{\parbox{1.8cm}{This is a very long line of text}} &               & \multirow{3}{*}{\parbox{2cm}{Another long line of text}} \\
                                                                      &  Short text   &  \\
                                                                      &               &  \\ \hline
    $\pi$                                                             &    1 in 5     & Common in math                                           \\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

Note that this aligns the columns vertically centered. The \parbox{length} defines when your text should be broken.