Tables

Many possibilities for tables typesetting

ConTeXt has a whole bunch of possibilities to typeset tables. Not each provides everything Features you may need.

Floating objects enable to place and number tables, like graphics.

• Recommended

  • Tabulate (tabulation, recommended for simple requirements)
  • TABLE (natural tables, HTML tables, recommended)
  • xtables (extreme tables – mostly compatible to natural tables, better for page breaking)
  • framed tables (for simple tables that span hundreds of pages)

• Deprecated

  • Table (TaBlE, deprecated)
  • Tables (multipage TaBlE, deprecated)

  Experimental

  • Linetable ("new" multipage tables, experimental and probably obsolete)

Note that you can use natural and extreme tables with the old Table/Tabulate syntax. (To make this even more confusing...)

If you have simple tables with lots of contents, and you're tired of typing \bTR\bTDs or \NC\NRs, you can also have a look at:

• database module and its manual.
• Wikitable, a TABLE wrapper that uses MediaWiki syntax
• ConTeXt basics for users: Table macros and Table macros II by Aditya Mahajan (2007 and 2008).

Features

Feature	Tabulate	Table/Tables	TABLE	xtables	Linetable	framedtable
horizonal lines	\HL	\HL	\setupTABLE [topframe=on] or \setupTABLE [bottomframe=on]	\setupxtable[...]	unknown	yes
vertical lines	\VL	\VL	\setupTABLE [leftframe=on] or \setupTABLE [rightframe=on]	\setupxtable[...]	unknown	yes
multipage	yes	no / yes (tables)	yes, with split=yes or split=repeat	vertically yes, horizontally not but planned	yes, even horizontally	yes
repeated header	\setuptabulate [header=repeat] \starttabulatehead ... \stoptabulatehead only one line	tables only: \setuptables [split=repeat] \starttablehead ... \stoptablehead	\bTABLE [split=repeat] \bTABLEhead ... \eTABLEhead	yes	yes	yes
repeated footer	no	tables only: \setuptables [split=repeat] \starttabletail ... \stoptabletail	no?	yes	no	unknown
automatic fitting to given table width	no	\SetTableToWidth	\setupTABLE [option=stretch, textwidth=10cm]	yes	default	unknown
problems	very limited	some limitations, problems with spacing \starttext \starttablehead \HL \stoptablehead \starttables[|l|l|] \dorecurse{50}{% \VL SomeText \VL SomeText \VL \AR} \stoptables Problem: top margin on first page is bigger. \stoptext	there may be problems in width and height calculation and perhaps the multipage features	very verbose	lack of documentation, just experimental	limitations, lack of documentation
documentation (except wiki)	contextref.pdf, tabl-tbl.mkii, MAPS article	ms-cb-en.pdf, tabl-tab.mkii	enattab.pdf, NaturalTables.pdf, tabl-ntb.mkii / tabl-ntb.mkiv	xtables-mkiv.pdf, tabl-xtb.lua	tabl-ltb.mkii / tabl-ltb.mkiv	?

Tutorials

• Creating booktabs-like tables