table-helper — booktabs tables done right

The canonical academic table

\usepackage{booktabs}     % required; no vertical rules
% optional but recommended for numerics:
\usepackage{siunitx}
\sisetup{detect-all, table-format=2.2}

\begin{table}[t]
  \centering
  \caption{Caption goes ABOVE the tabular.}     % position above for tables (below for figures)
  \label{tab:results}
  \begin{tabular}{l S[table-format=2.2] S[table-format=2.2]}
    \toprule
    Dataset & {Baseline (\%)} & {Ours (\%)} \\
    \midrule
    CIFAR-10  & 92.10 & 94.70 \\
    CIFAR-100 & 71.20 & 75.40 \\
    ImageNet  & 76.30 & 78.20 \\
    \bottomrule
  \end{tabular}
\end{table}

Three rules, three weights: \toprule and \bottomrule are heavy; \midrule is medium. Source: Simon Fear's "Publication quality tables in LATEX" (https://tug.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/booktabs/booktabs.pdf).

No vertical rules. This is a load-bearing convention from booktabs (and Tufte, and CMOS, and Nature/IEEE/ACM). Don't add | to column specs.

Column types

For headers in S columns, wrap in {...} to prevent siunitx from interpreting:

\begin{tabular}{l S S}
  \toprule
  & {Baseline} & {Ours} \\          % {} prevents alignment-by-decimal
  ...

Partial-row rules

\begin{tabular}{l c c c c}
  \toprule
  & \multicolumn{2}{c}{Dataset A} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{Dataset B} \\
  \cmidrule(lr){2-3} \cmidrule(lr){4-5}
  Method & Acc & F1 & Acc & F1 \\
  \midrule
  Baseline  & 71.2 & 70.4 & 65.0 & 64.1 \\
  Ours      & 86.4 & 85.7 & 79.2 & 78.6 \\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}

\cmidrule(lr){i-j} draws a rule from column i to j with shortened ends so adjacent rules don't touch. Source: booktabs PDF §\cmidrule.

Long table (spans pages)

\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\begin{longtable}{l c c}
  \caption{Caption.} \label{tab:long} \\
  \toprule
  Header A & Header B & Header C \\
  \midrule
  \endfirsthead
  \toprule
  Header A & Header B & Header C \\
  \midrule
  \endhead
  \bottomrule
  \endfoot
  Row 1 & x & y \\
  Row 2 & x & y \\
  ...
\end{longtable}

Wide table (rotated to landscape on its page)

\usepackage{rotating}
\begin{sidewaystable}[t]
  \centering
  \caption{Wide table caption.}
  \label{tab:wide}
  \begin{tabular}{l c c c c c c}
    \toprule
    ...
    \bottomrule
  \end{tabular}
\end{sidewaystable}

CSV → LaTeX conversion

For ad-hoc tables, the simplest path is a one-shot conversion. Given data.csv:

dataset,baseline,ours
CIFAR-10,92.1,94.7
CIFAR-100,71.2,75.4
ImageNet,76.3,78.2

Conversion via awk:

awk -F',' 'NR==1{ for(i=1;i<=NF;i++) h[i]=$i; printf "%s",h[1]; for(i=2;i<=NF;i++) printf " & %s", h[i]; print " \\\\"; print "\\midrule"; next } { printf "%s",$1; for(i=2;i<=NF;i++) printf " & %s", $i; print " \\\\" }' data.csv

Or use the pgfplotstable package for live CSV reading inside the .tex:

\usepackage{pgfplotstable}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\pgfplotstabletypeset[
  col sep=comma,
  every head row/.style={before row=\toprule, after row=\midrule},
  every last row/.style={after row=\bottomrule},
  columns/dataset/.style={string type, column name=Dataset},
  columns/baseline/.style={column name=Baseline (\%), fixed, fixed zerofill, precision=1},
  columns/ours/.style={column name=Ours (\%), fixed, fixed zerofill, precision=1},
]{data.csv}

The pgfplotstable route is best when the CSV is updated regularly — recompile and the table updates.

Footnotes inside tables

\footnote doesn't work inside floats. Use threeparttable:

\usepackage{threeparttable}
\begin{table}[t]
  \centering
  \caption{Caption.}
  \begin{threeparttable}
    \begin{tabular}{l c c}
      \toprule
      Method & Acc & F1 \\
      \midrule
      Baseline & 71.2 & 70.4 \\
      Ours\tnote{a} & 86.4 & 85.7 \\
      \bottomrule
    \end{tabular}
    \begin{tablenotes}\small
      \item[a] Trained for 100 epochs.
    \end{tablenotes}
  \end{threeparttable}
\end{table}

Multi-row cells

\usepackage{multirow}
\begin{tabular}{l c c c}
  \toprule
  Group & Method & Acc & F1 \\
  \midrule
  \multirow{2}{*}{Strong} & Baseline & 71.2 & 70.4 \\
                          & Ours     & 86.4 & 85.7 \\
  \midrule
  \multirow{2}{*}{Weak}   & Baseline & 65.0 & 64.1 \\
                          & Ours     & 79.2 & 78.6 \\
  \bottomrule
\end{tabular}

Pitfalls

• Don't use \hline between booktabs rules — the calibrated weights are spoiled by \hline's default thickness.
• Don't put | in column specs — academic style omits vertical rules.
• Caption position: ABOVE table, BELOW figure. Many authors get this wrong.
• siunitx S columns assume the value is a number; non-numeric headers must be wrapped in {...}.

When uncertain

For unusual table shapes (cross-tabulations, tables with rotated headers, mixed text+numerics), delegate to /academic-latex:docs-lookup. Booktabs / siunitx / pgfplotstable manuals have answers for everything.

Last verified

2026-05-09 — booktabs PDF (Simon Fear), siunitx PDF, pgfplotstable manual.