I prepared a small MWE that replicates the problem I am having. How do I properly center the header of a table for an IEEE publication?
Below the incorrect behavior:
Below the correct behavior I am looking for:
Below what I have done so far:
\documentclass{ieeetran}
\usepackage{ragged2e}
\usepackage{booktabs, makecell,
tabularx} % added
\newcolumntype{L}[1]{>{\RaggedRight\hspace{0pt}%
\hsize=#1\hsize}X} % new
\usepackage{siunitx} % consider is v3
\begin{document}
% Paragraphs...
\begin{table*}
\caption{Ranking of research methodologies for QUERY-1}
\setlength{\tabcolsep}{4pt}
\setcellgapes{3pt}
\makegapedcells
\begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{@{} >{\itshape}L{0.9}cc cL{1.1}c}
% \begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{@{}l*{10}{C}c@{}}
\toprule
\multicolumn{2}{@{} l}{Breakdown of research methodologies} \\
\midrule
\normalfont{Criterion 1}
& Criterion 2 & Criterion 3 & Classification & Papers using the research method \\
\midrule
Analytical
& Qualitative & Conceptual & Literature review & 21 \\
Analytical
& Qualitative & Conceptual & Literature review & 21 \\
Analytical
& Qualitative & Conceptual & Literature review & 21 \\
Analytical
& Qualitative & Conceptual & Literature review & 21 \\
Analytical
& Qualitative & Conceptual & Literature review & 21 \\
Empirical
& Qualitative & Conceptual & Literature review & 21 \\
Empirical
& Qualitative & Conceptual & Literature review & 21 \\
Empirical
& Qualitative & Conceptual & Literature review & 21 \\
Empirical
& Qualitative & Conceptual & Literature review & 21 \\
Empirical
& Qualitative & Conceptual & Literature review & 21 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabularx}
\end{table*}
In order to solve the problem I tried several solutions I found int this source, this other source. In order to be even more precise this is what I tried:
\begin{table*}
\centering
\begin{tabularx}{|p{2.5cm}|p{2.5cm}|p{2.5cm}|p{2.5cm}|p{2.5cm}|}
But that didn't work as the post described. But also I tried another approach, which is a more general approach see below:
\begin{table}
\centering
\begin{tabularx}{|c|c|c|c|c|}
None of the solution gave me the expected behavior. Please point to the right direction to find a solution to this issue.
EDITS
As advised by a user, in order to properly align the header in the middle the following modification should be introduced at the beginning:
\begin{table*}
\caption{Ranking of research methodologies for QUERY-1}
\setlength{\tabcolsep}{4pt}
\setcellgapes{3pt}
\makegapedcells
\begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{@{}X !{\qquad}Xc!{\qquad}Xc!{\qquad}Xc}
% Table stuff...
\bottomrule
\end{tabularx}
\end{table*}
However, the extra space between the column still persists and as you see below this is still the incorrect behavior as I am looking for a more condensed table as I show in the question.
ieeetrandocument class, neither examples are correct. Don't reformat caption style, which is determined by their document class.\documentclass{ieeetran}with\documentclass[conference]{IEEEtran}but that also didn't solve the problem. Is that what you were referring to?