Sidewaystable left align instead of centering

Question

I have a sideways table that does not fill the whole page. It is centered, but I want it to be left aligned (or if you turn the book around, to the top). Is there a way to do that? Please find below an example.

\documentclass[DIV12, a4paper, 12pt, listof=totocnumbered, bibliography=totoc]{book}
\usepackage[figuresright]{rotating}
\usepackage{threeparttable}
\usepackage{longtable, booktabs, tabularx}

\begin{document}

\begin{sidewaystable}
    \caption{Overview of the literature}
  \label{tab2:overviewliterature}
  \begin{threeparttable}
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{lXlXX}

\toprule
Year & Author(s) & Method & (+) & (--) \\
\midrule

xx & xx & xx & xx   \\
\addlinespace


    \bottomrule

  \end{tabularx}
  \begin{tablenotes}[para,flushleft]
  \footnotesize
  \item\hspace{-2.5pt}\noindent\textit{Continued on the next page.}  
  \end{tablenotes}
  \end{threeparttable}

\end{sidewaystable}

\end{document}

Answer 1

This solution uses \rotatebox (adjustbox package) to implement sideways tables. It uses a minpage covering the text area. The alignment is handled by the third optional argument: [t] [b] [c] and [s] for stretch (user supplied glue).

\documentclass[DIV12, a4paper, 12pt, listof=totocnumbered, bibliography=totoc]{book}
%\usepackage[figuresright]{rotating}
\usepackage{threeparttable}
\usepackage{longtable, booktabs, tabularx}
\usepackage{adjustbox}
\usepackage{showframe}% MWE only

\begin{document}

\begin{table}[p]
\rotatebox{90}{\begin{minipage}[b][\textwidth][t]{\textheight}
  \caption{Overview of the literature}
  \label{tab2:overviewliterature}
  \begin{threeparttable}
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{lXlXX}

\toprule
Year & Author(s) & Method & (+) & (--) \\
\midrule

xx & xx & xx & xx   \\
\addlinespace


    \bottomrule

  \end{tabularx}
  \begin{tablenotes}[para,flushleft]
  \footnotesize
  \item\hspace{-2.5pt}\noindent\textit{Continued on the next page.}  
  \end{tablenotes}
  \end{threeparttable}
\end{minipage}}
\end{table}

\end{document}

Answer 2

• instead of sidewaystable see if the use of the pdflandscape (or if you prefer lscape package) and afterpage packages gives desired result:

\documentclass[DIV12, a4paper, 12pt, listof=totocnumbered, bibliography=totoc]{book}
\usepackage{pdflscape}
\usepackage{booktabs, longtable, tabularx}
\usepackage[referable]{threeparttablex}
\usepackage{afterpage}
\usepackage{lipsum} % for dummy text, not needed in real document

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1]
\afterpage{
\begin{landscape}
\begin{threeparttable}
    \caption{Overview of the literature}
    \label{tab2:overviewliterature}
\begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{lXlXX}
    \toprule
Year    & Author(s) & Method    & $(+)$         & $(-)$         \\
    \midrule
xx      & xx        & xx        & \lipsum[66]   & \lipsum[11]   \\
    \bottomrule
\end{tabularx}
    \begin{tablenotes}[para,flushleft]\footnotesize
\textit{Continued on the next page.}
    \end{tablenotes}
\end{threeparttable}
\vfill\mbox{}
\end{landscape}
}

\lipsum[2-9]
\end{document}

• it is not clear, why you use threeparttable and tablenotes with note that table is continued on the next page?
• If this is case, than the use of tabularx will not enable to write to write table over few pages. Instead it you should use for example xltabular table environment and use threeparttable only if you need table notes.