latex-table-discipline

LaTeX Table Discipline

Tables in ACM acmart sigconf are narrow (~88mm per column) and float freely. Three failure modes recur and are addressed below.

Basic table form

\begin{table}[h]
\caption{Your caption here.}
\label{tab:label}
\begin{tabular}{lrrr}
\toprule
Column1 & Column2 & Column3 & Column4 \\
\midrule
data & data & data & data \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

CRITICAL: column-count must match

The number of specifier letters in {lrrr} MUST exactly match the number of &-separated columns in EVERY row, including the header. A mismatch causes a compile failure with an unhelpful error message.

Mandatory counting procedure — follow this every time:

1. Write out a sample data row first: Model & AUC & CI & Accuracy & F1 \\
2. Count the & characters: 4 ampersands → 5 columns
3. Write the tabular spec with exactly that many letters: {lrrrr} (1 + 4 = 5)
4. Verify every other row in the table also has exactly 4 & characters

Never write the spec before counting. One r too many or too few causes a compile error.

CRITICAL: wide tables (5+ columns) MUST use \resizebox

ACM sigconf is two-column. Any table with 5 or more columns WILL overflow the column and extend into the margin unless resized. Wrap the tabular in \resizebox{\columnwidth}{!}{...}:

\begin{table}[h]
\caption{Model comparison across all six models.}
\label{tab:model_comparison}
\resizebox{\columnwidth}{!}{%
\begin{tabular}{lrrrrr}
\toprule
Model & AUC & Acc. & Prec. & Recall & F1 \\
\midrule
XGBoost & 0.82 & 0.76 & 0.74 & 0.71 & 0.72 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}%
}
\end{table}

• Use abbreviated headers to save space: "Acc." not "Accuracy", "Prec." not "Precision", "CI" not "95% CI", "LR" not "Logistic Regression".
• The % after { and after \end{tabular} suppresses spurious whitespace.
• \resizebox comes from graphicx, already loaded by the template.
• If using threeparttable, wrap the entire \begin{threeparttable}...\end{threeparttable} block (not just the tabular) inside \resizebox.

CRITICAL: narrow tables (fewer than 5 columns) MUST NOT use \resizebox

\resizebox{\columnwidth}{!} scales the table to fill the full column width. On a 2–4 column table this makes the font absurdly large. Use a plain tabular without any wrapper.

Table notes — use threeparttable, never loose text after \end{table}

Tables float. Any \noindent{\small ...} placed after \end{table} is loose body text that will be separated from the table when it floats.

Always use threeparttable for tables with footnotes. The note lives inside the float and stays attached:

\begin{table}[h]
\caption{Your caption.}
\label{tab:label}
\begin{threeparttable}
\begin{tabular}{lrr}
\toprule
Col1 & Col2 & Col3\tnote{*} \\
\midrule
data & data & data \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\begin{tablenotes}
\footnotesize
\item[*] Your note text here.
\end{tablenotes}
\end{threeparttable}
\end{table}

• Use \tnote{*} (or \tnote{\dag}) in table cells to place the marker.
• Use \item[*] inside tablenotes for the note text.
• threeparttable is already loaded in the template — do NOT add \usepackage yourself.

NEVER place a footnote as \noindent{\small ...} after \end{table}.

Font/size declarations (CRITICAL — declaration must be inside braces)

\small, \footnotesize, \large, \itshape, etc. are declarations, not commands that take arguments. The declaration must be inside the group it scopes:

• CORRECT: {\small text} or oindent{\small text}
• WRONG: \small{text} or oindent\small{text} — leaks into the surrounding text

The same rule applies to all size and shape declarations.

Source provenance

Canonical source: agent_prompts/writer.yaml §"Tables" + §"Table Notes".

Merged content from: none — single-sourced.