Just to throw in my 2 cents.
[/quote]
I'm a fan of putting a thin dotted or light-colored line below every
third row in the table (as at left, in the above image) for two reasons:
When scanning across rows, the reader can keep his place by using
the position of the line as a point of reference. Each row either has a
line directly above it, below it, or has no line adjacent to it.
[/unquote]
This, to me has the implication that each three line section is a grouping
so that I might want to compare the first three lines against the next
three lines or the last three lines and so on.
It seems to be introducing an unintended structure to the data in the
table.
P.S I like booktabs :)
On 20 June 2014 12:27, Benedict Holland <benedict.m.holl...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> So now we are getting into type settings and visual aids and what is
> easier for us to read. I would argue that highlighting every 3rd row should
> place special emphasis on that row for some strange reason. Your eyes will
> naturally shift to the different row.
>
> The reasons to not zebra stripe are numerous but here it is condensed.
> Dark background and dark text is extremely hard to read. A different
> background highlights rows naturally. The table should be a graphic in an
> of itself. You should not add any color to make your statements.
>
> I have written extremely large and complex tables, for presentations no
> less, and you never should use zebra stripes or that period thing. What you
> should do is make sure your column widths are correct and your data is
> spaced such that a row reads like a book. There are obvious column spaces
> and it should be clear what the header for that column is. In addition,
> each row should be spaced such that whitespace is a natural bar. You should
> be able to look at the table from first to last column and have your eye
> not waver to the next row. This might mean you have to have quite large
> white space between rows and that is fine. All bars should be avoided. They
> are unnecessary but worse, they are a distraction. BTW, getting a table to
> look good always takes me several hours. Every table is different. Tables
> for presentations are even harder. Play with your spacing to make the table
> speak for itself without relying on color. Try it out. It will surprise
> you.
>
> This is what Tufte argues and more importantly almost, booktabs. Booktabs
> makes decent tables with the defaults. Read that document.
>
> ~Ben
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 11:42 AM, Daniel CLEMENT <dcleme...@laposte.net>
> wrote:
>
>> Le vendredi 20 juin 2014 à 11:22 -0400, Benedict Holland a écrit :
>> > Before you do this... read this article.
>> > http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001IV
>>
>> On this page, I noticed the following comment:
>>
>> [/quote]
>> I'm a fan of putting a thin dotted or light-colored line below every
>> third row in the table (as at left, in the above image) for two reasons:
>>
>> When scanning across rows, the reader can keep his place by using
>> the position of the line as a point of reference. Each row either has a
>> line directly above it, below it, or has no line adjacent to it.
>> [/unquote]
>>
>> I couldn't state it better. This reminded me of a rather old book I was
>> reading when I was young (Dungeons and Dragons manual...) with numerous
>> tables. The background was alternately white and grey, but changed only
>> every 3rd lines. So the zebra effect, if any, was not intrusive.
>>
>> I've always found it a example of good readability, for the reason
>> explained above. However, the table has to be long enough, and it may
>> look bad in photocopy.
>> >
>> > Zebra tables are almost always a bad idea. The correct way to solve
>> > the problem is through typesetting and either avoiding or using
>> > horizontal lines. You also should look at booktabs for some excellent
>> > visual explanations. Basically, try your best to not do this. It is
>> > quite hard for people to read and can be completely unavoidable. If
>> > you think you need this solution, the problem is that your columns are
>> > too wide for the data and there isn't enough spacing between your
>> > rows.
>> >
>> >
>> > ~Ben
>> >
>> >
>> > On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 9:08 AM, Evan Langlois <uudrui...@gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> > Thanks guys.
>> >
>> >
>> > Tom's suggestion worked great (except its ...
>> >
>> > \usepackage[table]{xcolor}
>> >
>> > not {color}). Don't know how you found that! PERFECT!
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Scott - Table 2.16 doesn't look like its shaded that way, and
>> > trying to pull it up in PDF tells me that package babel has
>> > unknown option ngerman and craps out on me. Something
>> > broken? Bug or my config?
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > -- Evan
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>> --
>> Daniel CLEMENT
>>
>>
>
--
John Kane
Kingston ON Canada
