How do I color table columns?

Question

I've found question How do I fill table cells with a background color?, but the link to the documentation isn't helping me at all.

I'd like to know how to color a table column given my column code, but the documentation only gives the syntax of the command. It doesn't give any code example of where to use it.

\usepackage{colortbl}

\begin{table}[h]
    \centering
    \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|}
        \hline
        \cellcolor[gray]{0.8}128&64&32&16&8&4&2&1\\\hline
        1&0&1&1&0&1&0&1\\\hline
    \end{tabular}
\end{table}

As you can see, I got \cellcolor to work, but I don't want to color individual cells. I want to color a whole column of the table. Does anybody know how I can go about to do this?

Answer 1

Here a small example, which might be of help to you.

• Define your own color using \definecolor{Gray}{gray}{0.85}
• Define your own columns using \newcolumntype{a}{>{\columncolor{Gray}}c}
• You are ready to go.

Code

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor,colortbl}

\newcommand{\mc}[2]{\multicolumn{#1}{c}{#2}}
\definecolor{Gray}{gray}{0.85}
\definecolor{LightCyan}{rgb}{0.88,1,1}

\newcolumntype{a}{>{\columncolor{Gray}}c}
\newcolumntype{b}{>{\columncolor{white}}c}

\begin{document} 


\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l | a | b | a | b}
\hline
\rowcolor{LightCyan}
\mc{1}{}  & \mc{1}{x} & \mc{1}{y} & \mc{1}{w} & \mc{1}{z} \\
\hline
variable 1 & a & b & c & d \\
variable 2 & a & b & c & d \\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{document}

Result

Answer 2

You can use \columncolor as

\begin{tabular}{|>{\columncolor[gray]{0.8}}c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|}

code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{colortbl}

\begin{document}
\begin{table}[h]
    \centering
    \begin{tabular}{|>{\columncolor[gray]{0.8}}c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|}
        \hline
        128&64&32&16&8&4&2&1\\\hline
        1&0&1&1&0&1&0&1\\\hline
        1&0&1&1&0&1&0&1\\\hline
    \end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}

Answer 3

It’s easy peasy to color cells/rows/columns with tblr environment of the new LaTeX3 package tabularray:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{tabularray}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}[h]
  \centering
  \begin{tblr}{
    colspec = {|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|},
    row{2} = {purple7},
    column{3} = {teal7},
    cell{2}{3} = {yellow7},
  }
    \hline
      128 & 64 & 32 & 16 & 8 & 4 & 2 & 1 \\
    \hline
        1 &  0 &  1 &  1 & 0 & 1 & 0 & 1 \\
    \hline
        1 &  0 &  1 &  1 & 0 & 1 & 0 & 1 \\
    \hline
  \end{tblr}
\end{table}

\end{document} 

Answer 4

With {NiceTabular} of nicematrix, you can color a column with the same syntax as in {tabular} (when colortbl is loaded) with the advantage that you will have a perfect PDF output: rules won't seem to vanish and you won't see thin white lines, whatever PDF viewer you use.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{nicematrix}

\begin{document}

\begin{NiceTabular}{c|>{\columncolor{blue!15}}c|cc}[colortbl-like]
A & 1 & 2 & 3 \\
B & 4 & 5 & 10 \\
C & 9 & 12 & 15
\end{NiceTabular}

\end{document}

You need several compilations (because nicematrix uses PGF/Tikz nodes under the hood).

It's also possible to specify instructions to color columns (or cells, rows, etc.) in the \CodeBefore before the contents of the tabular.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{nicematrix}

\begin{document}

\begin{NiceTabular}{c|c|cc}
\CodeBefore
  \columncolor{blue!15}{2}
\Body
  A & 1 & 2 & 3 \\
  B & 4 & 5 & 10 \\
  C & 9 & 12 & 15
\end{NiceTabular}

\end{document}

The output is the same.

More generally, you can fill an column (or any zone of the tabular) with any pattern of Tikz.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{nicematrix,tikz}

\begin{document}

\begin{NiceTabular}{c|c|cc}
  A & \Block[tikz={top color=blue!15}]{*-1}{}
      1 & 2 & 3 \\
  B & 4 & 5 & 10 \\
  C & 9 & 12 & 15
\end{NiceTabular}

\end{document}