Fancy tables in LaTeX

Question

I am terrible at LaTeX tables. I managed to produce a table, but it looks so basic. How do I make it fancier?

Here is the table's code:

\begin{table}
    \begin{tabular}{|l|l|l|l|l|}
         \hline
             Models    & A  & B  & C  & D  \\ \hline
             Model $X$ & X1 & X2 & X3 & X4 \\ \hline
             Model $Y$ & Y1 & Y2 & Y3 & Y4 \\
         \hline
    \end{tabular}
\end{table}

Answer 1

Besides using booktabs, you can use either colortbl or xcolor (with the option [table] to color the tables.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\usepackage{booktabs}
 \begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{*5l}    \toprule
\emph{name} & \emph{foo} &&&  \\\midrule
Models    & A  & B  & C  & D  \\ 
\rowcolor{blue!50} Model $X$ & X1 & X2 & X3 & X4\\ 
\rowcolor{green!50} Model $Y$ & Y1 & Y2 & Y3 & Y4\\\bottomrule
 \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

Another method is somewhat automatic:

\rowcolors{<starting row>}{<first color>}{<second color>}

MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\usepackage{booktabs}
 \begin{document}

\rowcolors{3}{green!25}{yellow!50}
\begin{tabular}{ *5l }    \toprule
\emph{name} & \emph{foo} &&&  \\\midrule
Models    & A  & B  & C  & D  \\ 
Model $X$ & X1 & X2 & X3 & X4\\ 
Model $Y$ & Y1 & Y2 & Y3 & Y4\\\bottomrule
 \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

Refer to the documentation of xcolor at texdoc.net for more details.

Answer 2

You shouldn't use vertical lines:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs}
 \begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{@{} *5l @{}}    \toprule
\emph{name} & \emph{foo} &&&  \\\midrule
Models    & A  & B  & C  & D  \\ 
 Model $X$ & X1 & X2 & X3 & X4\\ 
 Model $Y$ & Y1 & Y2 & Y3 & Y4\\\bottomrule
 \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

it is a bit tricky if one has on the left and right no \tabcolsep which looks better to me, but want to color the lines:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array,booktabs}
\newcolumntype{L}{@{}>{\kern\tabcolsep}l<{\kern\tabcolsep}}
\usepackage{colortbl}
\usepackage{xcolor}
 \begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{@{} l L L L @{} >{\kern\tabcolsep}l @{}}    \toprule
\emph{name} & \emph{foo} &&&  \\\midrule
Models    & A  & B  & C  & D  \\ 
\rowcolor{black!20}[0pt][0pt] Model $X$ & X1 & X2 & X3 & X4\\ 
\rowcolor{black!40}[0pt][0pt] Model $Y$ & Y1 & Y2 & Y3 & Y4\\\bottomrule
 \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

Answer 3

Use booktabs package. The documentation discuss how to produce nicer tables.

• Don't use vertical lines
• Don't use unnecessary horizontal lines
• Take out the extra space at right and left of table with @{}

You can read more in this guide

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs}

\begin{document}
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{@{} l *4c @{}}
\toprule
 \multicolumn{1}{c}{Models}    & A  & B  & C  & D  \\ 
\midrule
 Model $X$ & X1 & X2 & X3 & X4 \\ 
 Model $Y$ & Y1 & Y2 & Y3 & Y4 \\ \bottomrule
 \end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}

Answer 4

+1 for the other answers- you can get some fancy input by using the pgfplotstable package

You can colour the rows if you like- see the documentation for more details.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{pgfplotstable}

% global settings
\pgfplotstableset{
    every head row/.style={
    before row=\toprule,after row=\midrule},
    every last row/.style={
    after row=\bottomrule},
    col sep = &,
    row sep=\\,
    string type,
}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}
\pgfplotstabletypeset{
 Models    & A  & B  & C  & D  \\ 
 Model $X$ & X1 & X2 & X3 & X4 \\ 
 Model $Y$ & Y1 & Y2 & Y3 & Y4 \\
 Model $Z$ & Z1 & Z2 & Z3 & Z4 \\
}
\end{table}

\end{document}

Answer 5

Just for fun, a proposal using the excellent tabularray package.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\pagestyle{empty}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{tabularray}
\UseTblrLibrary{booktabs}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}
  \caption{Example of table with \texttt{tabularray}.}
  \label{tab:example}
  \centering
  \begin{tblr}{
      colspec={lllll},
      row{1}={font=\bfseries},
      column{1}={font=\itshape},
      row{even}={bg=gray!10},
    }
              & A  & B  & C  & D  \\
    \toprule
    Model $X$ & X1 & X2 & X3 & X4 \\
    Model $Y$ & Y1 & Y2 & Y3 & Y4 \\
    Model $Z$ & Z1 & Z2 & Z3 & Z4 \\
    \bottomrule
  \end{tblr}
\end{table}
\end{document}