Re: Shaded Tables?

[John Kane]

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

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Benedict Holland]

I got some excellent feedback yesterday about this actually. So I don't
expect people to rush out and buy books but let me clarify a bit. Booktabs
is a latex library which produces publication quality tables. It is free.
The PDF takes about 10 minutes to read to get the problems faced when
designing and developing tables.

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/booktabs/
http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/CTAN/macros/latex/contrib/booktabs/booktabs.pdf

There are also 4 books by Tufte which go into great detail about how to
build and design tables, charts, and graphs which are both beautiful and
not misleading. In summary of all of this work, you don't want to use
background color at all on tables. John got it correct. It puts a
subconscious grouping on tables and we really want to see what the
highlighted or different sections have in common. Horizontal lines CAN help
with this but typically a horizontal line separates sections in a table
like if you had two types of variables (endogenous with IV, exogenous). Too
many horizontal lines make the table blurred and difficult to read.
Vertical lines do exactly what you do not want to do: they break the
movement of your eyes going across the row. This might be what you want if
you have a set of values vertically defined however. It will package them
for you.

Basically, what all of this literature shows is that spacing is very
important in tables. Shading is completely unnecessary. The proper use of
whitespace and typesetting will produce a table which is easily readable no
matter the size. Of course, if you have a multipage table which spans the
entire length with 5 columns, that will take more white space to look
correct than if you have a simple 2 column table. The point of buffering
the rows with whitespace is to basically create lines of white such that
each row is clearly defined. That also means that the column width is
important too. If your column width is too wide and there is too much
buffering on the cells, it would like a checkerboard of all white squares
with tiny pieces inside. The columns are too defined relative to the rows
so the column widths must be shrunk.

http://konigi.com/notebook/zebra-striping-does-it-really-help

I am sort of harping on this issue because this comes up so much in
academic presentations and papers. I figured this audience, more than most,
will be focused on typesetting and care about the readability of extremely
complex tables. Zebra striping is quite bad and is easily solved with
proper typesetting. For this original posters example, I would be willing
to show a small sample of the zebra striped default against a typeset
booktabs with good spacing. Perhaps that might convince people. This issue
is also quite complex. It involves human perception, cognition, and
readability. BTW, if you really want some boring in your life, read about
typesetting. Those books are tedious as hell. Tufte is always fun and
hopefully I have summarized enough so you don't have to buy the books.

Thanks,
~Ben


On Sat, Jun 21, 2014 at 9:35 AM, John Kane jrkrid...@gmail.com wrote:

 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. 

Re: Shaded Tables?

[John Kane]

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

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Benedict Holland]

I got some excellent feedback yesterday about this actually. So I don't
expect people to rush out and buy books but let me clarify a bit. Booktabs
is a latex library which produces publication quality tables. It is free.
The PDF takes about 10 minutes to read to get the problems faced when
designing and developing tables.

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/booktabs/
http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/CTAN/macros/latex/contrib/booktabs/booktabs.pdf

There are also 4 books by Tufte which go into great detail about how to
build and design tables, charts, and graphs which are both beautiful and
not misleading. In summary of all of this work, you don't want to use
background color at all on tables. John got it correct. It puts a
subconscious grouping on tables and we really want to see what the
highlighted or different sections have in common. Horizontal lines CAN help
with this but typically a horizontal line separates sections in a table
like if you had two types of variables (endogenous with IV, exogenous). Too
many horizontal lines make the table blurred and difficult to read.
Vertical lines do exactly what you do not want to do: they break the
movement of your eyes going across the row. This might be what you want if
you have a set of values vertically defined however. It will package them
for you.

Basically, what all of this literature shows is that spacing is very
important in tables. Shading is completely unnecessary. The proper use of
whitespace and typesetting will produce a table which is easily readable no
matter the size. Of course, if you have a multipage table which spans the
entire length with 5 columns, that will take more white space to look
correct than if you have a simple 2 column table. The point of buffering
the rows with whitespace is to basically create lines of white such that
each row is clearly defined. That also means that the column width is
important too. If your column width is too wide and there is too much
buffering on the cells, it would like a checkerboard of all white squares
with tiny pieces inside. The columns are too defined relative to the rows
so the column widths must be shrunk.

http://konigi.com/notebook/zebra-striping-does-it-really-help

I am sort of harping on this issue because this comes up so much in
academic presentations and papers. I figured this audience, more than most,
will be focused on typesetting and care about the readability of extremely
complex tables. Zebra striping is quite bad and is easily solved with
proper typesetting. For this original posters example, I would be willing
to show a small sample of the zebra striped default against a typeset
booktabs with good spacing. Perhaps that might convince people. This issue
is also quite complex. It involves human perception, cognition, and
readability. BTW, if you really want some boring in your life, read about
typesetting. Those books are tedious as hell. Tufte is always fun and
hopefully I have summarized enough so you don't have to buy the books.

Thanks,
~Ben


On Sat, Jun 21, 2014 at 9:35 AM, John Kane jrkrid...@gmail.com wrote:

 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. 

Re: Shaded Tables?

[John Kane]

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 
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 
> 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 
>> > 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

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Benedict Holland]

I got some excellent feedback yesterday about this actually. So I don't
expect people to rush out and buy books but let me clarify a bit. Booktabs
is a latex library which produces publication quality tables. It is free.
The PDF takes about 10 minutes to read to get the problems faced when
designing and developing tables.

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/booktabs/
http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/CTAN/macros/latex/contrib/booktabs/booktabs.pdf

There are also 4 books by Tufte which go into great detail about how to
build and design tables, charts, and graphs which are both beautiful and
not misleading. In summary of all of this work, you don't want to use
background color at all on tables. John got it correct. It puts a
subconscious grouping on tables and we really want to see what the
highlighted or different sections have in common. Horizontal lines CAN help
with this but typically a horizontal line separates sections in a table
like if you had two types of variables (endogenous with IV, exogenous). Too
many horizontal lines make the table blurred and difficult to read.
Vertical lines do exactly what you do not want to do: they break the
movement of your eyes going across the row. This might be what you want if
you have a set of values vertically defined however. It will "package" them
for you.

Basically, what all of this literature shows is that spacing is very
important in tables. Shading is completely unnecessary. The proper use of
whitespace and typesetting will produce a table which is easily readable no
matter the size. Of course, if you have a multipage table which spans the
entire length with 5 columns, that will take more white space to look
correct than if you have a simple 2 column table. The point of buffering
the rows with whitespace is to basically create lines of white such that
each row is clearly defined. That also means that the column width is
important too. If your column width is too wide and there is too much
buffering on the cells, it would like a checkerboard of all white squares
with tiny pieces inside. The columns are too defined relative to the rows
so the column widths must be shrunk.

http://konigi.com/notebook/zebra-striping-does-it-really-help

I am sort of harping on this issue because this comes up so much in
academic presentations and papers. I figured this audience, more than most,
will be focused on typesetting and care about the readability of extremely
complex tables. Zebra striping is quite bad and is easily solved with
proper typesetting. For this original posters example, I would be willing
to show a small sample of the zebra striped default against a typeset
booktabs with good spacing. Perhaps that might convince people. This issue
is also quite complex. It involves human perception, cognition, and
readability. BTW, if you really want some boring in your life, read about
typesetting. Those books are tedious as hell. Tufte is always fun and
hopefully I have summarized enough so you don't have to buy the books.

Thanks,
~Ben


On Sat, Jun 21, 2014 at 9:35 AM, John Kane  wrote:

> 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 
> 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 

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Tom Hopper]

This might do what you want:
http://texblog.org/2011/09/02/coloring-every-alternate-table-row/

From that page, define the following in your preamble, and you should get
alternating colors in all tables:
 \usepackage[table]{color}
 \definecolor{lightgray}{gray}{0.9}
 \let\oldtabular\tabular
 \let\endoldtabular\endtabular
 \renewenvironment{tabular}{\rowcolors{2}{white}{lightgray}\oldtabular}{
\endoldtabular}


On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 7:40 AM, uudruid74 uudrui...@gmail.com wrote:

 Can LyX do shaded backgrounds in tables?  I want to shade every other line
 (like old mainframe computer paper) so that large tables are easier to
 read.
 Can it do this without manually formatting every line?  Or would it be
 easier to use a spreadsheet app and then print to a file and import it as a
 big graphic?  Some combination of printer filters should give me an EPS or
 whatever I could bring in.

 Comments?  Ideas?  Suggestions?



 --
 View this message in context:
 http://lyx.475766.n2.nabble.com/Shaded-Tables-tp7580291.html
 Sent from the LyX - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 5:43 AM, Tom Hopper tomhop...@gmail.com wrote:
 This might do what you want:
 http://texblog.org/2011/09/02/coloring-every-alternate-table-row/

 From that page, define the following in your preamble, and you should get
 alternating colors in all tables:
 \usepackage[table]{color}
 \definecolor{lightgray}{gray}{0.9}
 \let\oldtabular\tabular
 \let\endoldtabular\endtabular
 \renewenvironment{tabular}{\rowcolors{2}{white}{lightgray}\oldtabular}{\endoldtabular}


 On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 7:40 AM, uudruid74 uudrui...@gmail.com wrote:

 Can LyX do shaded backgrounds in tables?  I want to shade every other line
 (like old mainframe computer paper) so that large tables are easier to
 read.
 Can it do this without manually formatting every line?  Or would it be
 easier to use a spreadsheet app and then print to a file and import it as
 a
 big graphic?  Some combination of printer filters should give me an EPS or
 whatever I could bring in.

 Comments?  Ideas?  Suggestions?

Good find, Tom.

uudruid, also take a look at Help  EmbeddedObjects. In particular,
see Table 2.16, Table where every second row is colored light gray.

In fact, you  might want to go through all of the help files. They
have a lot of good information and although it will take some time,
you will learn a lot.

Best,

Scott

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Evan Langlois]

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

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Benedict Holland]

Before you do this... read this article.
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001IV

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

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Benedict Holland]

Sorry, completely avoidable. Check out The books by Edward Tufte for some
excellent visuals and explanations about why they are so good.

~Ben


On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 11:22 AM, Benedict Holland 
benedict.m.holl...@gmail.com wrote:

 Before you do this... read this article.
 http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001IV

 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

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Daniel CLEMENT]

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

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Benedict Holland]

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

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Tom Hopper]

This might do what you want:
http://texblog.org/2011/09/02/coloring-every-alternate-table-row/

From that page, define the following in your preamble, and you should get
alternating colors in all tables:
 \usepackage[table]{color}
 \definecolor{lightgray}{gray}{0.9}
 \let\oldtabular\tabular
 \let\endoldtabular\endtabular
 \renewenvironment{tabular}{\rowcolors{2}{white}{lightgray}\oldtabular}{
\endoldtabular}


On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 7:40 AM, uudruid74 uudrui...@gmail.com wrote:

 Can LyX do shaded backgrounds in tables?  I want to shade every other line
 (like old mainframe computer paper) so that large tables are easier to
 read.
 Can it do this without manually formatting every line?  Or would it be
 easier to use a spreadsheet app and then print to a file and import it as a
 big graphic?  Some combination of printer filters should give me an EPS or
 whatever I could bring in.

 Comments?  Ideas?  Suggestions?



 --
 View this message in context:
 http://lyx.475766.n2.nabble.com/Shaded-Tables-tp7580291.html
 Sent from the LyX - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 5:43 AM, Tom Hopper tomhop...@gmail.com wrote:
 This might do what you want:
 http://texblog.org/2011/09/02/coloring-every-alternate-table-row/

 From that page, define the following in your preamble, and you should get
 alternating colors in all tables:
 \usepackage[table]{color}
 \definecolor{lightgray}{gray}{0.9}
 \let\oldtabular\tabular
 \let\endoldtabular\endtabular
 \renewenvironment{tabular}{\rowcolors{2}{white}{lightgray}\oldtabular}{\endoldtabular}


 On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 7:40 AM, uudruid74 uudrui...@gmail.com wrote:

 Can LyX do shaded backgrounds in tables?  I want to shade every other line
 (like old mainframe computer paper) so that large tables are easier to
 read.
 Can it do this without manually formatting every line?  Or would it be
 easier to use a spreadsheet app and then print to a file and import it as
 a
 big graphic?  Some combination of printer filters should give me an EPS or
 whatever I could bring in.

 Comments?  Ideas?  Suggestions?

Good find, Tom.

uudruid, also take a look at Help  EmbeddedObjects. In particular,
see Table 2.16, Table where every second row is colored light gray.

In fact, you  might want to go through all of the help files. They
have a lot of good information and although it will take some time,
you will learn a lot.

Best,

Scott

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Evan Langlois]

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

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Benedict Holland]

Before you do this... read this article.
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001IV

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

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Benedict Holland]

Sorry, completely avoidable. Check out The books by Edward Tufte for some
excellent visuals and explanations about why they are so good.

~Ben


On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 11:22 AM, Benedict Holland 
benedict.m.holl...@gmail.com wrote:

 Before you do this... read this article.
 http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001IV

 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

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Daniel CLEMENT]

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

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Benedict Holland]

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

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Tom Hopper]

This might do what you want:
http://texblog.org/2011/09/02/coloring-every-alternate-table-row/

>From that page, define the following in your preamble, and you should get
alternating colors in all tables:
 \usepackage[table]{color}
 \definecolor{lightgray}{gray}{0.9}
 \let\oldtabular\tabular
 \let\endoldtabular\endtabular
 \renewenvironment{tabular}{\rowcolors{2}{white}{lightgray}\oldtabular}{
\endoldtabular}


On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 7:40 AM, uudruid74  wrote:

> Can LyX do shaded backgrounds in tables?  I want to shade every other line
> (like old mainframe computer paper) so that large tables are easier to
> read.
> Can it do this without manually formatting every line?  Or would it be
> easier to use a spreadsheet app and then print to a file and import it as a
> big graphic?  Some combination of printer filters should give me an EPS or
> whatever I could bring in.
>
> Comments?  Ideas?  Suggestions?
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://lyx.475766.n2.nabble.com/Shaded-Tables-tp7580291.html
> Sent from the LyX - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 5:43 AM, Tom Hopper  wrote:
> This might do what you want:
> http://texblog.org/2011/09/02/coloring-every-alternate-table-row/
>
> From that page, define the following in your preamble, and you should get
> alternating colors in all tables:
> \usepackage[table]{color}
> \definecolor{lightgray}{gray}{0.9}
> \let\oldtabular\tabular
> \let\endoldtabular\endtabular
> \renewenvironment{tabular}{\rowcolors{2}{white}{lightgray}\oldtabular}{\endoldtabular}
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 7:40 AM, uudruid74  wrote:
>>
>> Can LyX do shaded backgrounds in tables?  I want to shade every other line
>> (like old mainframe computer paper) so that large tables are easier to
>> read.
>> Can it do this without manually formatting every line?  Or would it be
>> easier to use a spreadsheet app and then print to a file and import it as
>> a
>> big graphic?  Some combination of printer filters should give me an EPS or
>> whatever I could bring in.
>>
>> Comments?  Ideas?  Suggestions?

Good find, Tom.

uudruid, also take a look at Help > EmbeddedObjects. In particular,
see Table 2.16, "Table where every second row is colored light gray."

In fact, you  might want to go through all of the help files. They
have a lot of good information and although it will take some time,
you will learn a lot.

Best,

Scott

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Evan Langlois]

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

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Benedict Holland]

Before you do this... read this article.
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001IV

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  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
>

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Benedict Holland]

Sorry, completely avoidable. Check out The books by Edward Tufte for some
excellent visuals and explanations about why they are so good.

~Ben


On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 11:22 AM, Benedict Holland <
benedict.m.holl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Before you do this... read this article.
> http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001IV
>
> 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 
> 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
>>
>
>

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Daniel CLEMENT]

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 
> 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

Re: Shaded Tables?

[Benedict Holland]

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 
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 
> > 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
>
>