Csdrhrt

I have the following MWE, but I have a problem with the alignment of the last column (under the multicolumn)

documentclass{report}

usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

usepackage{booktabs}

usepackage{calc}

usepackage{array}

usepackage{color}

%

begin{document}

%

% table 1 

% evenly alined

begin{table}[htbp]

centering

begin{tabular}{ccccc}

toprule

& & multicolumn{3}{c}{Reduced component sizes}\

%cmidrule(r){3-5} 

cmidrule{3-5} 

% multicolumn{2}{c}{Internal mode count, $m$} &10&20&30&10&20&30\

%midrule

Component & Full size & $m=4$ & $m=8$ & $m=12$\

midrule

1 & 257 & 24 & 28 & 32 \

2 & 420 & 47 & 51 & 55 \

3 & 177 & 24 & 28 & 32 \

bottomrule

end{tabular}

caption{Information on component level degrees of freedom}

label{tab:information-overview-academic-model}

end{table}

% 

% table 2 

% not evenly alined

begin{table}[htbp]

centering

begin{tabular}{ccccc}

toprule

& & multicolumn{3}{c}{Reduced component matrix sizes textcolor{red}{test text added}}\

%cmidrule(r){3-5} 

cmidrule{3-5} 

% multicolumn{2}{c}{Internal mode count, $m$} &10&20&30&10&20&30\

%midrule

Component & Full size & $m=4$ & $m=8$ & $m=12$\

midrule

1 & 257 & 24 & 28 & 32 \

2 & 420 & 47 & 51 & 55 \

3 & 177 & 24 & 28 & 32 \

bottomrule

end{tabular}

caption{Information on component level degrees of freedom}

label{tab:information-overview-academic-model}

end{table}

%

end{document}

The result I am getting is that the columns under the multicolumns are not evenly separated. And when I increase the width of the text argument to multicolumn command it becomes even worse, first example seems to be fine but with the second there is definitely a problem. Here is the output of the above code:

Any ideas are appreciated to solve this issue.
Many thanks in advance.

I suggest two kinds of solutions.

The first one with makecell which puts the multicolumn header on many lines; the second one with tabularx which equally distributes the spaces among the last 3 columns, leaving the header in one line.

documentclass{report}

usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

usepackage{booktabs}

usepackage{calc}

usepackage{array}

usepackage{color}

usepackage{makecell}

usepackage{tabularx}

newcolumntype{C}{>{centeringarraybackslash}X}

begin{document}

%

% table 1 

% evenly alined

begin{table}[htbp]

centering

begin{tabular}{ccccc}

toprule

& & multicolumn{3}{c}{Reduced component sizes}\

%cmidrule(r){3-5} 

cmidrule{3-5} 

% multicolumn{2}{c}{Internal mode count, $m$} &10&20&30&10&20&30\

%midrule

Component & Full size & $m=4$ & $m=8$ & $m=12$\

midrule

1 & 257 & 24 & 28 & 32 \

2 & 420 & 47 & 51 & 55 \

3 & 177 & 24 & 28 & 32 \

bottomrule

end{tabular}

caption{Information on component level degrees of freedom}

label{tab:information-overview-academic-model}

end{table}

% 

begin{table}[htbp]

centering

begin{tabular}{ccccc}

toprule

& & multicolumn{3}{c}{makecell{Reduced component\ matrix sizes\ textcolor{red}{test text added}}}\

%cmidrule(r){3-5} 

cmidrule{3-5} 

% multicolumn{2}{c}{Internal mode count, $m$} &10&20&30&10&20&30\

%midrule

Component & Full size & $m=4$ & $m=8$ & $m=12$\

midrule

1 & 257 & 24 & 28 & 32 \

2 & 420 & 47 & 51 & 55 \

3 & 177 & 24 & 28 & 32 \

bottomrule

end{tabular}

caption{With textbackslashtexttt{makecell}}

label{tab:information-overview-academic-modelbis}

end{table}

begin{table}[htbp]

centering

begin{tabularx}{linewidth}{ccCCC}

toprule

& & multicolumn{3}{c}{Reduced component matrix sizes textcolor{red}{test text added}}\

%cmidrule(r){3-5} 

cmidrule{3-5} 

% multicolumn{2}{c}{Internal mode count, $m$} &10&20&30&10&20&30\

%midrule

Component & Full size & $m=4$ & $m=8$ & $m=12$\

midrule

1 & 257 & 24 & 28 & 32 \

2 & 420 & 47 & 51 & 55 \

3 & 177 & 24 & 28 & 32 \

bottomrule

end{tabularx}

caption{With texttt{tabularx}}

label{tab:information-overview-academic-modelter}

end{table}

end{document}

Just for the sake of variety, here's a solution which (a) calculates the natural widths of columns 3, 4, and 5 and (b) uses the combined widths of the three columns (plus the intercolumn whitespace amount) to typeset the long header string in a way that allows for automatic line-breaking.

This approach keeps the tabular material nice and compact; this is generally considered to be a good thing.

Observe that I would place the headers "Component" and "Full size" at the top rather than at the bottom of the header material.

documentclass{report}

usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

usepackage{xcolor,booktabs,array,ragged2e}

%% Create a new column type:

newcolumntype{C}[1]{>{Centeringarraybackslash}p{#1}}



begin{document}



begin{table}[htbp]

centering

begin{tabular}{ccccc}

toprule

& & multicolumn{3}{c}{Reduced component sizes}\

cmidrule{3-5} 

Component & Full size & $m=4$ & $m=8$ & $m=12$\

midrule

1 & 257 & 24 & 28 & 32 \

2 & 420 & 47 & 51 & 55 \

3 & 177 & 24 & 28 & 32 \

bottomrule

end{tabular}

caption{OP's original layout}

label{tab:a}

end{table}





%% perform a few length calculations 

newlengthmylen

newlengthmylena

newlengthmylenb

settowidthmylena{$m=4$}

settowidthmylenb{$m=12$}

setlength{mylen}{dimexpr2mylena+mylenb+4tabcolseprelax}



begin{table}[htbp]

centering

begin{tabular}{@{}ccccc@{}}

toprule

Component & Full size & 

multicolumn{3}{C{mylen}@{}}{Reduced component matrix sizes textcolor{red}{test text added}}\

cmidrule(l){3-5} 

& & $m=4$ & $m=8$ & $m=12$\

midrule

1 & 257 & 24 & 28 & 32 \

2 & 420 & 47 & 51 & 55 \

3 & 177 & 24 & 28 & 32 \

bottomrule

end{tabular}

caption{Automatic line-breaking in cols 3 to 5}

label{tab:b}

end{table}



end{document}