Control table height

Question

I'm trying to create a table with mailing adresses to print so what I need is to match my table dimensions to the pre-cut sticker paper. So far I've managed to control column width with p{\dimexpr 0.25\linewidth-2\tabcolsep} (I tried p{5cm} which is the exact measure of the sticker but it goes too wide off the page for some reason I just don't understand). However, I don't know how to properly adjust the vertical height of my table.

What I'm doing via Rmarkdown is breaking my data matrix in groups of 4 in order to create a one-row table. Then the next four are in a new table below the previously created one. (This is what I could came up with if someone knows a better way I would really appreciate it)

My problem is all tables adjust to the full size of the page and I want them flushed to the top of the page for printing.

Can someone help me??

This is the latex code produced by R:

\begin{table}[t]
\begin{flushleft}
\begingroup\footnotesize
\begin{tabular}{p{\dimexpr 0.25\linewidth-2\tabcolsep}p{\dimexpr 0.25\linewidth-2\tabcolsep}p{\dimexpr 0.25\linewidth-2\tabcolsep}p{\dimexpr 0.25\linewidth-2\tabcolsep}}
  Name & Name & Name & Name \\ 
  Address & Address & Address & Address \\ 
  town & town & town & town \\ 
  city & city & city & city \\ 
  \end{tabular}
\endgroup
\end{flushleft}
\end{table}
\begin{table}[t]
\begin{flushleft}
\begingroup\footnotesize
\begin{tabular}{p{\dimexpr 0.25\linewidth-2\tabcolsep}p{\dimexpr 0.25\linewidth-2\tabcolsep}p{\dimexpr 0.25\linewidth-2\tabcolsep}p{\dimexpr 0.25\linewidth-2\tabcolsep}}
  Name & Name & Name & Name \\ 
  Address & Address & Address & Address \\ 
  town & town & town & town \\ 
  city & city & city & city \\ 
  \end{tabular}
\endgroup
\end{flushleft}
\end{table}

This is my curent R code

data <- structure(c("Name", "Address", "town", "city", "Name", "Address", 
"town", "city", "Name", "Address", "town", "city", "Name", "Address", 
"town", "city", "Name", "Address", "town", "city", "Name", "Address", 
"town", "city", "Name", "Address", "town", "city", "Name", "Address", 
"town", "city"), dim = c(4L, 8L))

rows <- ncol(data)%/%4

for (i in 1:rows)
{
  print(xtable::xtable(data[,(4*(i-1)+1):min(4*i,ncol(data))],
        align=rep("p{\\dimexpr 0.25\\linewidth-2\\tabcolsep}",5)),
        table.placement = "t",
        latex.environments = "flushleft",
        hline.after=NULL,
        include.rownames=FALSE,
        include.colnames=FALSE,
        comment=FALSE,
        sanitize.text.function = identity,
        size=c("\\footnotesize"))
}

Answer 1

Just remove the option table.placement = "t" to allow the default [ht] float options,or use more flexible options, or better, change it to table.caption = FALSE to not use floats at all.

p{5cm}probably was too much because you must take into account\tacolsep, as you did using .25\linewidth`.

BTW, I will do the data base with a data frame with four columns/variable (name, address,town,city). To print as columns will be just t(df[1:4,]) for the first table

---
output:
  pdf_document: 
    keep_tex: yes
---

```{r,results='asis',echo=F}

data <- structure(c("Name", "Address", "town", "city", "Name", "Address", 
"town", "city", "Name", "Address", "town", "city", "Name", "Address", 
"town", "city", "Name", "Address", "town", "city", "Name", "Address", 
"town", "city", "Name", "Address", "town", "city", "Name", "Address", 
"town", "city"), dim = c(4L, 8L))

rows <- ncol(data)%/%4

for (i in 1:rows)
{
  print(xtable::xtable(data[,(4*(i-1)+1):min(4*i,ncol(data))],
        align=rep("p{\\dimexpr 0.25\\linewidth-2\\tabcolsep}",5)),
        table.caption = FALSE,
        latex.environments = "flushleft",
        hline.after=NULL,
        include.rownames=FALSE,
        include.colnames=FALSE,
        comment=FALSE,
        sanitize.text.function = identity,
        size=c("\\footnotesize"))
}

```