Tables - Separate content in plaintext and styles like alignment, spacing, markup, and calculation, utilizing Tabularray

Use only one¹ package for tables, a modern LaTeX3 package with key-value configuration separating the styles and table content. Calculate correct cell dimensions, and spacing. Select rows, columns, cells, and grid lines for flexible designs, following these objectives:

• Keep the table data portable, raw, and readable: No macros in table content (except math macros supported by MathJax and KaTeX)
• Row, column headers: Narrow (down) titles; Group similar titles; Put more important columns to the left; Prefer more rows than columns
• Make layout light-weight: Few border lines; Spacing between cells, rows, columns; Few colors; Visually guide horizontal reading (Zebra, dashed lines)
• Horizontal alignment: Left-align text, row headers; Right-align numbers; Center-align column headers

My main resources are the official package documentation of Tabularray², and documentation on LaTeX3 functional³, and expl3⁴.

This tabularray package will […] directly use LaTeX3 functions to parse the table, and then typeset the entire table. Under the premise of being compatible with the basic syntax of LaTeX2 tables, this macro package will completely separate the content and style of the table, and the style of the table can be completely set in keyval way.

• from package description of Tabularray²

Format table without changing the input data

Format headers (first row, first column)

• Group row, column headings, see 1.1
• Visually clarify table boundaries: Thick horizontal lines 1.1, 1.2
• Visually clarify column titles and row titles: Thin border line 1.1-1.3a; Left-aligned first column 1.1, 1.2
• Apply pattern to border lines: Inner gridlines 1.3a, shortline for column headers
• Multicolumn header
• See examples with source code: Format headers - Group, align, rotate, separate, and abbreviate the titles for rows and columns

Format numbers

Numbers are very information-dense, but visually heavy. To make them understandable at a glance, and quicker and more robust to use, format them right-aligned, unify their presentation with separation and exponents that also emphasize significant digits, and most importantly, keep them consistent.

• Scientific notation $x\cdot 10^y$: emphasizes significant figures, is shorter, easier to read and compare, and less prone to error; Use exponents starting from $\pm 5$, or multiples of 3
• Align figures, see 2.5: Separate digits into thousands; Cents are uniformly wide and stroked if zero
• Emphasize differences of similar values: Short preceding or appended text but put scientific units in the table header or footer; Color negative values
• Localize: Adapt date and time representation and separators for decimal point, thousands, and exponent to language specifications
• More: Style fractions; Calculate value of math expressions
• See examples with source code: Format numbers - Evaluate, Round to precision, Set decimal and thousands separator, Use scientific notations

Format text

• Url, Monospace, Movie list, regex, detect name, replace LaTeX → \LaTeX, auto truncate to footnote, autoheaders(rotate, group), vgroupdetect, hgroupdetect, auto format, replace empty cells, texttt
• See examples with source code: Format text - Style body text in monospace, macros with slash

Layout the final document

• g has different vertical height vphantom? captionsetup?
• Reference floating tables
• Let table float here, superwide, above, below, next to a page’s main text
• Add caption, and reference the table elsewhere
• Placement, alignment: center the table horizontally
• Add references: caption above and in the list of tables, label to cross-reference elsewhere
• More ideas: legende, Multifigure, Split, Longtable, surpress tableoftables entry, table next to text, globally set placement specifiers
• Center, Caption, Reference, Longtable, Caption below/above, Caption number, Figurename
• See examples with source code: Floating table - Let table float here, superwide, above, below, next to a page’s main text

Dynamically calculate cell text, style

• Dynamic calculation vs external preprocessing
• explain expl3, functional
• compare typst, lualatex, xetex, python, dataview, excel
• why separate formulas? excel copy pasting includes formatting
• Calculations need to be shown somewhere else in the document? ⇒ Dynamic calculations

Row and column numbers

• See examples with source code: Cell addresses - Count rows and columns relative to the entire table, its body, or the current group

Spreadsheets

• See examples with source code: Spreadsheets - Calculate sum, mean, standard deviation, max, and min across selection of cells

Process files

• See examples with source code: CSV Input - Dynamically generate table from file

Add statistics to data

• See examples with source code: Table calculation

Compact data tables

Set cell text, style with functions

• Row, column counter; Statistics (sum, mean, standard deviation), regex replace, conditional formatting, heatmap, negative values, validate values, calculate function, compare ideal function to meassured values
• excels capture values with text
• See examples with source code: Calculate statistics for table numbers

Import data from files

• Keep the data in raw and universal (csv) form: Update data anytime with external programs like Excel, Python, MATLAB, R, PowerShell
• Render scientific notation correctly and uniform: Render 4.41941738e-02 as $4.42\cdot 10^{-2}$ $3a,3b,3c$
• Format numbers: Set max. decimal places $3a,3b,3c$; When to show exponent $3c$; Use German commas $3b$
• Visually guide horizontal reading: Shade every other row $3a$; Add dashed line every third row $3b$
• Process input data: sort with column $3c$
• More ideas: filter, sort, custom column titles, multi column names, Align at decimal or scientific separator
• See examples with source code: Process, and format values from files

Layout, reference the table

Split table in page columns

• Split in equal parts; 4a: Longtable split in half; References
• See examples with source code: Layout the table

Export formatted table

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{Table 2.3a:}\\ \begin{array}{ccr}\text{Name}& \text{Uniform}& \begin{array}{c}\text{Alt}\\ \text{code}\end{array}\\ \alpha \backslash \text{alpha}& \text{U+03B1}& 224\\ \gamma \backslash \text{gamma}& \text{U+0393}& 226\\ \delta \backslash \text{delta}& \text{U+03B4}& 235\end{array}\end{array}$$

Name	Uniform	Alt code
$\alpha$ \alpha	U+03B1	224
$\gamma$ \gamma	U+0393	226
$\delta$ \delta	U+03B4	235

Things to avoid - Notes - Other

• How to design good tables

• More table examples, mainly pgfplotstable

• formatted text, multicolumn, code in table, image in content, empty cell, postproc, true/false → tickboxes, postprocess make command, detect backtick for commands

• convert backticks to verbatim

• convert text to textbackslash, texttt

• convert X \ Y to diagonal row title and column title

• detect columntitle is first markdown column is left aligned

• detect diagonal splitcell in top-leftmost when is contains \

• make all math displaymode, inline, fancyfrac Nicefrac, sfrac - Nice fractions for inline math

Image in table

Calculate column sum

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Sources:

• Tables and Figures | Engineering Writing Center | College of Engineering | USU

Related:

• Graphical elements - Standardize tables, images, plots
• LaTeX - Typeset mathematical and scientific notation, handle cross-referencing and citations, and position images according to defined placement rules
• Markup and typesetting systems - Produce printed or digital documents aesthetically pleasing with readable typography
• Style presets - Format your document after you written the content in Word, Latex, Markdown
• Excel to latex - Embed spreadsheet files as latex tables

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Footnotes

1. There are dozens of traditional LaTeX2 packages for tables which are inconsistent, and unpleasant to use. Here is a list, through the descriptions are not good: tables - Which tabular packages do which tasks and which packages conflict? - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange ↩

2. tabularray – Typeset tabulars and arrays with LaTeX3: Overview - CTAN ; Documentation - Mirrors ; Wiki - GitHub ↩ ↩²

3. functional – Provide an intuitive functional programming interface for LaTeX2: Overview - CTAN ; Documentation - Mirrors ; Wiki - GitHub ↩

4. expl3 – Wrapper package for experimental LaTeX3: Overview - CTAN ; Documentation - Mirrors ; The LaTeX Project ↩