For a simple data frame. First, without formatters:
In [11]: df Out[11]: c1 c2 first 0.821354 0.936703 second 0.138376 0.482180 In [12]: print df.to_latex() \begin{tabular}{|l|c|c|c|} \hline {} & c1 & c2 \\ \hline first & 0.821354 & 0.936703 \\ second & 0.138376 & 0.482180 \\ \hline \end{tabular}
Copy-pasting the output (of [12]) to latex, we get: 
If we create two functions f1 and f2 and put them into to_latex as formatters:
def f1(x): return 'blah_%1.2f' % x def f2(x): return 'f2_%1.2f' % x In [15]: print df.to_latex(formatters=[f1, f2]) \begin{tabular}{|l|c|c|c|} \hline {} & c1 & c2 \\ \hline first & blah\_0.82 & f2\_0.94 \\ second & blah\_0.14 & f2\_0.48 \\ \hline \end{tabular}
Copy-pasting the output to latex, we get: 
Note: how the formatter function f1 is applied to the first column and f2 to the second.