longtable not compatible with 2-column LaTeX documents

[nrnrnr]

For some time I have been using pandoc to create two-column PDF documents via LaTeX. (This can be accomplished with some abuse of the fontsize variable.) However, in the transition from 1.9.x to 1.11.1, all tables appear to have become longtable environments, and when presented with two-column format, longtable falls over:

pandoc: Error producing PDF from TeX source.
! Package longtable Error: longtable not in 1-column mode.

See the longtable package documentation for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...                                              

l.267 \begin{longtable}

I see in past issues that the transition from ctable to longtable was decided on a while back, but I really hate to lose the ability to create two-column documents, which I use heavily. I also understand the issue of wanting to stick with relatively standard LaTeX packages.

Is it possible that the old ctable back end could be resurrected via some kind of command-line option? It sounds horrible, but I can't think of a better solution.

[nrnrnr]

Regarding the possibility of using longtable in 2-column documents, I found this thread on a Stack Exchange site, but it is not promising: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/39686/longtable-alternative-for-twocolumn-documents

[scmbradley]

I have a related issue that probably isn't worth opening another issue ticket for. Rather than a "resurrect ctable" solution, I'd prefer an option that just turns tables into very basic tabular environments. Or maybe a new style of markdown (or some sort of in-text flag) that outputs basic tabulars.

[scmbradley]

As a workaround, one can pandoc into tex and then use sed (or whatever) to replace all instances of longtable with tabular or ctable or whatever other environment you want...

[nrnrnr]

@scmbradley is it really that simple?

[dsoto]

@nrnrnr @scmbradley From what I can tell, if you use tabular, you also have to add table environments. I can do this manually, but I don't see a way to do it with the template.

[daroczig]

It would be indeed very useful if ctable, longtable or other similar environments would not be hard-coded, but the user could pass it e.g. via a pandoc option.

[terceiro]

I solved this by using this tip: replacing longtable with supertabular made it work for me.

[dtinth]

When replacing longtable with supertabular, you may get error about undefined command \endhead. Simply remove that from the LaTeX source.

To center the table, wrap them between \begin{center} and \end{center}.

Here's the code I add to the build process (in Ruby). result is the conversion result from Pandoc (actually generated from ipython nbconvert):

result.gsub!('\begin{longtable}', '\begin{center}\begin{supertabular}')
result.gsub!('\endhead', '')
result.gsub!('\end{longtable}', '\end{supertabular}\end{center}')

[nvasilakis]

Hey everyone, sorry for resurrecting this one -- do we have any way of resolving this beyond using sed? In theory, it should be able to just amend the latex template -- but the latex template does not seem to allow edits to the table structure. Any ideas?

[jgm]

If there were no other differences, you could do a
renewenvironment in the template, and redefine longtable
as table. E.g.

\let\longtable\table
\let\endlongtable\endtable

But there are some differences between the two environments,
e.g. as regards handling of footnotes, so this probably
won't work in general. (It might work sometimes.)

+++ Nikos Vasilakis [Aug 17 15 20:32 ]:

Hey everyone, sorry for resurrecting this one -- do we have any way of
resolving this beyond using sed? In theory, it should be able to just
amend the latex template -- but the latex template does not seem to
allow edits to the table structure. Any ideas?

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References

1. longtable not compatible with 2-column LaTeX documents #1023 (comment)

[nvasilakis]

Thanks John! This does not work though, I think because the generated table code has a number extra stuff -- for instance: ! LaTeX Error: Unknown float optionc'.`.

However, I am now thinking: wouldn't a solution based on detecting supertabular work? For example, in LaTeX.hs source (intended mostly as pseudocode -- my haskell is rusty):

  return ( if ("supertabular" `isInfixOf` (writerTemplate opts)) then
           ( "\\begin{supertabular}[c]" <>
                braces ("@{}" <> colDescriptors <> "@{}")
           $$ capt
           $$ headers
           $$ vcat rows'
           $$ "\\end{supertabular}"
          )
         else -- normal old behavior
           ( "\\begin{longtable}[c]" <>
                braces ("@{}" <> colDescriptors <> "@{}")
                -- the @{} removes extra space at beginning and end
           $$ capt
           $$ "\\toprule"
           $$ headers
           $$ endhead
           $$ vcat rows'
           $$ "\\bottomrule"
           $$ "\\end{longtable}"
           )
         )

[jgm]

I don't really like making behavior sensitive to what's in
the template in the way you describe.

What about doing what I suggested, but with supertabular
instead of table? Does that work? Note that the midline,
topline, bottomline are from booktabs and should still work
with supertabular, I think.

+++ Nikos Vasilakis [Aug 17 15 23:23 ]:

Thanks John! This does not work though, I think because the generated
table code has a number extra stuff -- for instance: ! LaTeX Error:
Unknown float optionc'.`.

However, I am now thinking: wouldn't a solution based on detecting
supertabular work? For example, in LaTeX.hs source (intended mostly as
pseudocode -- my haskell is rusty):

return ( if ("supertabular" isInfixOf (writerTemplate opts)) then
( "\begin{supertabular}[c]" <>
braces ("@{}" <> colDescriptors <> "@{}")
$$ capt
$$ headers
$$ vcat rows'
$$ "\end{supertabular}"
)
else -- normal old behavior
( "\begin{longtable}[c]" <>
braces ("@{}" <> colDescriptors <> "@{}")
-- the @{} removes extra space at beginning and end
$$ capt
$$ "\toprule"
$$ headers
$$ endhead
$$ vcat rows'
$$ "\bottomrule"
$$ "\end{longtable}"
)
)

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References

1. longtable not compatible with 2-column LaTeX documents #1023 (comment)

[nvasilakis]

Changing the lines you suggested to:

\let\longtable\supertabular
\let\endlongtable\endsupertabular

while adding:

\usepackage{supertabular}
\usepackage{booktabs}

..still doesn't work:

! Undefined control sequence.
<recently read> \endhead

My goal is to have tables in two-column latex documents. Do you use a different way to achieve a similar result in your documents?

Regarding the psudo-patch I proposed, I know it's not optimal, it's just to get people going until a proper solution gets in. Another simple idea might be to just default to supertabular or xtab.

[jgm]

+++ Nikos Vasilakis [Aug 18 15 10:45 ]:

My goal is to have tables in two-column latex documents. Do you use a different way to achieve a similar result in your documents?

I've never tried this.

Regarding the psudo-patch I proposed, I know it's not optimal, it's just to get people going until a proper solution gets in. Another simple idea might be to just default to supertabular or xtab.

The problem is that if we do support it in some versions,
people will have documents that depend on this behavior,
and we'll have to keep it or make breaking changes.

One possibility would be to check for twocolumn in the
classoption variable, and use a regular table environment
if so. But, as I recall, there are still some issues
relating to different handling of footnotes in table and
longtable -- maybe other things too.

What are the advantages of supertabular or xtab over table?