How to code tables with multi-line cells

lexu picture lexu · May 24, 2010 · Viewed 79.6k times · Source

I am trying to write a short paper with LaTeX and need to add a table with 3 columns.

+-------------+-----------------+--------------------------------------+
| AAAAAAAAAA  | BBBBBBBBBBBBBBB | Betty Botter Bought a Bit of Butter  |
|             |                 | but the Butter's Bitter              |
+-------------+-----------------+--------------------------------------+
| CCCCCCCC    | DDDD            | Betty Botter Thought:                |
|             |                 | If I Put This Bitter Butter in My    |
|             |                 | Batter it Will Make My Batter Bitter |
+-------------+-----------------+--------------------------------------+

Unfortunately I can't seem to find the correct idiom to do it.


I tried:

\begin{tabular}{lll} 
    AAAAAAAAAA  & BBBBBBBBBBBBBBB & Betty Botter Bought a Bit of Butter but 
    the Butter's Bitter  \\
    CCCCCCCC  & DDDD & Betty Botter Thought: \newline If I Put This Bitter Butter in My Batter it Will Make My Batter Bitter
 \end{tabular}

But LaTeX doesn't do any linebreaks or formatting within the cell. I assume I need to tell it to do so.. But how?

Answer

aioobe picture aioobe · May 24, 2010

Use the p column descriptor:

Change

\begin{tabular}{lll} 

to

\begin{tabular}{llp{5cm}}

To explicitly insert line-breaks:

CCCCCCCC  & DDDD & \parbox{5cm}{Betty Botter Thought: \\ If I Put This Bitter Butter in My Batter it Will Make My Batter Bitter}