Tables environment

Question

I have a question about breaking lines and pages in table environment. I know, there are some solutions as using longtable package, however, it is quite complicated and I don't know how to work with it....I'm writing the list of symbols and abbreviations. I'm using the standard look with no lines at all, only two columns left side symbol, right side explanation. I have two problems.

1. In case of a long explanation I need to put handy \\ at the end of a line to break it, but it's not the same length for all rows.
2. Sometimes I need to put one table in two pages and I don't know how to break it automatically.

Is there any simple solution of these problems?

\begin{tabular}{ll}
$X\sim\mathsf{N}(\mu,\,{\sigma}^{2})$& the random variable $X$
has normal (Gaussian) distribution\\ & with mean $\mu$ and variance ${\sigma}^{2}$\\
\end{tabular}

To the point 1. In every item I need to put handy \\ & (after distribution) to cut it because it is long and the rows are not the same length...I'd like to ask how to do it automatically the breaking at the end of lines.

Answer 1

You are mis-using the l column which is designed for single-line entries. In the tabular you should use a p column to allow line breaking to the specified width. In its simplest use longtable markup is identical to tabular just change the environment name and it allows page breaking. The following document shows you a tabular using p and the equivalent longtable.

\documentclass{article}

\setlength\textheight{15\baselineskip}

\usepackage{longtable}

\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{ll}
$X\sim\mathsf{N}(\mu,\,{\sigma}^{2})$& the random variable $X$
has normal (Gaussian) distribution\\ & with mean $\mu$ and variance ${\sigma}^{2}$\\
\end{tabular}


\begin{tabular}{lp{6cm}}
$X\sim\mathsf{N}(\mu,\,{\sigma}^{2})$& the random variable $X$
has normal (Gaussian) distribution with mean $\mu$ and variance ${\sigma}^{2}$
\end{tabular}


\begin{longtable}{lp{6cm}}
$X\sim\mathsf{N}(\mu,\,{\sigma}^{2})$& the random variable $X$
has normal (Gaussian) distribution with mean $\mu$ and variance ${\sigma}^{2}$\\
$X\sim\mathsf{N}(\mu,\,{\sigma}^{2})$& the random variable $X$
has normal (Gaussian) distribution with mean $\mu$ and variance ${\sigma}^{2}$\\
$X\sim\mathsf{N}(\mu,\,{\sigma}^{2})$& the random variable $X$
has normal (Gaussian) distribution with mean $\mu$ and variance ${\sigma}^{2}$\\
$X\sim\mathsf{N}(\mu,\,{\sigma}^{2})$& the random variable $X$
has normal (Gaussian) distribution with mean $\mu$ and variance ${\sigma}^{2}$\\
$X\sim\mathsf{N}(\mu,\,{\sigma}^{2})$& the random variable $X$
has normal (Gaussian) distribution with mean $\mu$ and variance ${\sigma}^{2}$\\
$X\sim\mathsf{N}(\mu,\,{\sigma}^{2})$& the random variable $X$
has normal (Gaussian) distribution with mean $\mu$ and variance ${\sigma}^{2}$\\
$X\sim\mathsf{N}(\mu,\,{\sigma}^{2})$& the random variable $X$
has normal (Gaussian) distribution with mean $\mu$ and variance ${\sigma}^{2}$\\
\end{longtable}
\end{document}

Answer 2

Try using the tabu-package with longtabu. The simplest longtabu is:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs,longtable,tabu}

\begin{document}
\begin{longtabu} to \linewidth {@{}X[l]X[l]X[2l]@{}} \toprule

Item    &   Qualifier   &   Description \\
\midrule

Item 1  &   Punch drunk &   A very long description \newline
                            that need som linebreaks to look \newline
                            nice and fit \

Item 2  &   Just drunk  &   Also have very long description \newline 
                            that need som linebreaks to look \newline 
                            nice and fit \\ \bottomrule
\end{longtabu}

\end{document}