Rich Shepard wrote:
I have a table that may have up to 33 columns and a couple of hundred
rows
to include in a report. It's probably too wide -- even in landscape mode
with the lscape package -- but the longtable package will accommodate the
length. I cannot recall having to put such a large table onto lettersize
paper before; doubt that any spreadsheet or data table I've created has
been
this large and needed to be printed.
What I'd appreciate are suggestions for organizing the table. Perhaps I
should separate the columns (the first three on the left are the
identifiers) into blocks, and print each block separately so the same three
columns are on the left but the next few are different.
Thoughts?
That's basically what I would do (if I ever drank enough to come up with
a table with 33 columns :-)). One question to ask yourself is which is
more important for the reader -- tying together clusters of columns from
the same rows, or comparing rows within one or two columns. If the
latter, it would make sense to do all rows of column group A (plus keys)
in one long table, then all rows of column group B in another long
table, etc. If the former, it would make more sense to column group A
for the first n rows, then column group B for same n rows, etc., then
move on to the next n rows. The idea is to minimize page flipping while
doing whatever comparisons you would most want to do.
One other thing, which is dependent on the medium of the document. If
this is going to end up in a PDF file viewed digitally (as opposed to a
printed document), you might want to use a column to hyperlink rows (or
the first row of each group) to the same row, next block of columns (or
us a column to link to same columns, next block of rows). In other
words, set it up so that I can get to both the next block of rows (same
columns) and next block of columns (same rows) quickly, in one case via
Page Down and in the other via a hyperlink.
HTH,
Paul
