Make LaTeX table caption same width as table?

Question

It looks bad in my paper if a caption is wider than the table underneath it. How can I make them both align?

Right now my code looks like:

\begin{table}[th!]
\caption{Reference temperature blah blah}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{llll}
...
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

There is a special site for TeX/LaTeX questions: http://tex.stackexchange.com/ — Aligus, May 09 '12 at 17:43

Johu · Answer 1 · 2016-11-05T10:34:49.450

40

Actually there is a more legal way to do this using captions package option width.

For global effect

\usepackage[width=.75\textwidth]{caption}

For local effect only in current environment:

\usepackage{caption}
\captionsetup{width=.75\textwidth}

More info in caption package doc:

https://www.ctan.org/pkg/caption?lang=en

http://mirrors.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/caption/caption-eng.pdf (direct link to PDF subject to change)

edited Nov 05 '16 at 10:34

answered May 09 '12 at 17:31

Johu

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Is there a way to make it so that the caption text is justified, so that the text is flush with the left and right boundaries of the caption? – Nike Nov 04 '16 at 20:19
Using this seems to alter alignment. – hola Apr 30 '22 at 23:46

score 14 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 23 '10 at 23:02

14

if you know or find out the width of the table, let's say 5cm -

if you're using a KOMA-Script class:

\setcapwidth[c]{5cm}
if you're using the caption package:

\captionsetup{width=5cm}

Both may be applied inside the table environment.

An automatically calculating solution is more complicated, but could be done using the \settowidth command.

answered Jul 23 '10 at 23:02

Stefan

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This is exactly what I needed. Although why isn't this on tex.stackexchange? – Mark Jeronimus Jun 12 '12 at 08:57
If I use `\captionsetup{width=5cm}`, the alignment is shifted. – hola Apr 30 '22 at 23:45

score 14 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 04 '11 at 23:24

14

I've had success by putting my caption in a parbox:

\parbox{5cm}{\caption{Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...}}

answered Aug 04 '11 at 23:24

lubar

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use \parbox{\textwidth}{\caption{..}} to get rid of hard coded numbers – Pushpendre Nov 16 '14 at 17:13

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 17 '12 at 07:40

5

in caption package guide:

Only fixed widths are supported here; if you are looking for a way to limit the width of the caption to the width of the figure or table, please take a look at the floatrow[8] or threeparttable[22] package.

answered Dec 17 '12 at 07:40

Hadi Safi aghdam

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As Hadi recommends, I used the **threeparttable** package to have a table caption as wide as the table. I put the table caption between *\begin{threeparttable}* and *\end{threeparttable}*. – miyashin Aug 28 '13 at 18:05

Caleb Hattingh · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-06T23:29:08.217

2

Put your table plus caption inside a minipage. The caption will wrap. This is also a great way to have proper footnotes for tables.

edited Oct 06 '14 at 23:29

answered Jul 23 '10 at 21:51

Caleb Hattingh

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I think I might have already tried that... how do I get the minipage to the table width? – webjunkie Jul 23 '10 at 21:59
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Search in this page for *Side-by-side tables* (shows an example of specifying minipage width): http://people.csail.mit.edu/jrennie/latex/ – Caleb Hattingh Jul 26 '10 at 14:23

Make LaTeX table caption same width as table?

5 Answers5