How to fix the column width for specific rows of my table?

Question

I am new to Latex, and I was trying to make a table. Everything was fine, until I added the last merged row for notes. It turned out like this:

The code I used is here below:

\pagebreak
\begin{landscape}
\begin{center}
\textit{Table 1: Table 1: Effect of earthquake intensity (MMI) on PC index}\\
\vspace*{.2in}
\begin{tabular} { l c c c c c c c c }
\hline
 & (1) & (2) & (3) & (4) & (5) & (6) & (7) & (8)\\
\hline
\underline{Independent variables}\\
\\[-2em]
Year is 2016 & .925*** & .906* & .689 & -.071 & .029 & -.219 & 1.056 & .000\\
\\[-3em]
 & (.153) & (.531) & (.481) & (.441) & (.437) & (.408) & (1.621) & (.000)\\
MMI & -.063*** & -.060* & -.047 & .107* & .097 & -.126 & -.049 & .000\\
\\[-3em]
 & (.022) & (.074) & (.070) & (.061) & (.060) & (.064) & (.243) & (.000)\\
\hline
Fixed effects & No & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes\\
\\[-2em]
Household controls & No & No & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes\\
\\[-2em]
Earthquake controls & No & No & No & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes\\
\\[-2em]
Embargo controls & No & No & No & No & No & No & Yes & Yes\\
\\[-2em]
RCT treatment controls & No & No & No & No & No & No & No & Yes\\
\hline
N & 5,875 & 5,756 & 5,721 & 3,986 & 3,988 & 3,986 & 3,151 & .000\\
\\[-2em]
R-squared & .047 & .047 & .151 & .129 & .133 & .129 & .096 & .000\\
\hline
\multicolumn{9}{l}{\underline{Notes:}}\\
\multicolumn{9}{l}{Regressions (3) and (4) use the same set of controls. (3) controls for a dummy of whether the household receive any aid, and (4) controls for the total amount of aid received. Regressions in all other columns control for the dummy of aid received.}\\
\multicolumn{9}{l}{Regression (4) uses interaction of MMI with earthquake-related variables (aid received or not, death of household member, and fallen agricultural prices) instead of controlling them.}\\

\end{tabular}
\end{center}

Is there any way I can fix the width of the last row with notes to the size of the table before I added the text in the row so that it would not continue to increase horizontally as I add more text? Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

Your LaTeX code suffers from a number of fairly serious issues.

• Do get rid of all [-2em] and [-3em] spacing modifiers.

• To typeset table-related notes, I suggest you look into using the threeparttable package and its eponymous environment. Use \tnote directives to set footnote markers, and use a tablenotes environment to typeset the corresponding footnote. A really, really nifty aspect of using a threeparttable environment is that LaTeX will automatically calculate the width of the tablenotes environment for you, to coincide with the width of the tabular environment.

• Please don't use underlining for emphasis. It's extremely poor typographic practice. Do use either boldfacing or italics to create emphasis.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pdflscape,booktabs}
\usepackage[flushleft]{threeparttable}
\renewcommand\TPTtagStyle{\textit} 
\usepackage[font=it,skip=0.5\baselineskip]{caption} % italic text for captions

\begin{document}

\begin{landscape}
\begin{table}
\centering
\begin{threeparttable}
\caption{Effect of earthquake intensity (MMI) on PC index}

\begin{tabular} {@{} l *{8}{c} @{}}
\toprule
 & (1) & (2) & (3)\tnote{a,b} & (4)\tnote{b} & (5) & (6) & (7) & (8)\\
\cmidrule(l){2-9}
\emph{Independent variables}\\[1ex]
Year is 2016 & .925*** & .906* & .689 & $-$.071 & .029 & $-$.219 & 1.056 & .000\\
 & (.153) & (.531) & (.481) & (.441) & (.437) & (.408) & (1.621) & (.000)\\[1ex]
MMI & $-$.063*** & $-$.060* & $-$.047 & .107* & .097 & $-$.126 & $-$.049 & .000\\
 & (.022) & (.074) & (.070) & (.061) & (.060) & (.064) & (.243) & (.000)\\
\midrule
Fixed effects       & No & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes\\
Household controls  & No & No  & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes\\
Earthquake controls & No & No  & No  & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes\\
Embargo controls    & No & No  & No  & No  & No  & No  & Yes & Yes\\
RCT treatment controls & No & No & No & No & No  & No  & No  & Yes\\
\midrule
$N$ & 5,875 & 5,756 & 5,721 & 3,986 & 3,988 & 3,986 & 3,151 & .000\\
R\textsuperscript{2} & .047 & .047 & .151 & .129 & .133 & .129 & .096 & .000\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}

\smallskip
\emph{Notes:}
\begin{tablenotes}
\item[a] Regressions (3) and (4) use the same set of controls. (3) controls for a dummy of whether the household receive any aid, and (4) controls for the total amount of aid received. Regressions in all other columns control for the dummy of aid received.
\item[b] Regression (4) uses interaction of MMI with earthquake-related variables (aid received or not, death of household member, and fallen agricultural prices) instead of controlling them.
\end{tablenotes}
\end{threeparttable}

\end{table}

\end{landscape}
\end{document}