shrinking tables for presentations

Question

What is the most convenient way to shrink a table to fit in a beamer slide?

I'd point out that large tables are not usually a good idea in presentations, so before you simply cram in lots of numbers do think about the point you are aiming to achieve. — Joseph Wright♦, Nov 8 '10 at 5:51

Stefan Kottwitz · Accepted Answer · 2010-11-08 09:51:38Z

15

Besides adjusting the font size such that it fits:

You could use tabularx to fit the table to the slide by using automatically expanding columns
Or you could use \resizebox of the graphicx package to scale a complete table/tabular environment to match the slide width or height.

answered Nov 8 '10 at 9:51

Stefan Kottwitz♦

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The downside of \resizebox is that if you have a landscape page and use longtable package, the table gets flipped and is rendered useless. At least that was my case. Good tip, though. – Roman Luštrik Dec 12 '10 at 15:03
\resizebox \r \resizebox does not work for me; I'm using TeXnicCenter. There have to be a way to improve on including tables, none of the solutions given above work. – Galois Theory Dec 13 '11 at 22:04
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@RomanLuštrik: in the context of a presentation, having a side-way table would be somewhat... odd. – Bruno Le Floch Dec 13 '11 at 22:40

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C. Reed · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-22 00:30:43Z

22

Use \small or \tiny after the \begin{table}

answered Nov 8 '10 at 3:44

C. Reed

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4

You mean after \begin{table}? Most likely, in a presentation one will use a table without putting it as a float. In that case, but \small etc before \begin{tabular} and enclose it in a group. – Aditya Nov 8 '10 at 6:48
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As far as I know the »beamer« class defines its own non-floating table (and figure) environment. – Thorsten Donig Nov 8 '10 at 8:16
+1 also got it working adding \huge between \begin{table} and \begin{tabular} – David LeBauer Dec 1 '10 at 0:48

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2 Answers 2