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I've seen many questions regarding 2 tables, but for some reason none of the solutions worked for me when I have multiple tables, which may extend to a new page.

The example below is for 2 tables, but in my actual document I have many tables, and there is a large space between them. I tried the following:

  1. Rolling them all into a single table using \begin{table}...\end{table}. This does indeed remove the whitespace. But the problem is that when there are many tables over multiple pages, then it doesn't break into a new page in the correct place. It just truncates the table and the rest of the table disappears.

  1. However, when I split them up, as shown below, then there is a large whitespace in between.

  2. Of course I can manually insert \begin{table}....\end{table} for a subset of the tables (perhaps the first 2 or 3), and then let the page break happen, and then group the remaining tables \begin{table}....\end{table}, but that doesn't seem like a sustainable solution to me because as the document changes I would have to update this.

\documentclass[runningheads]{llncs} \usepackage{subcaption} \usepackage{booktabs} \usepackage{tabularx} \begin{document} \begin{table}[] \caption{S } \label{tab:mytable} \begin{tabular}{@{}llll@{}} \toprule & a & b & q \\ \midrule 0 & 5 & 2 & 9.0 \\ 0 & 5 & 5 & .39 \\ 0 & 5 & 3 & .73 \\ \bottomrule \end{tabular} \end{table} \setlength{\floatsep}{0.1pt} \begin{table}[] \caption{S } \label{tab:mytable} \begin{tabular}{@{}llll@{}} \toprule & a & b & q \\ \midrule 0 & 5 & 2 & 9.0 \\ 0 & 5 & 5 & .39 \\ 0 & 5 & 3 & .73 \\ \bottomrule \end{tabular} \end{table} \end{document}

How do I reduce the space between multiple tables, yet still allow the page breaks to happen naturally?

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  • you can put both tabular and both captions in the same table if you want them to stay together, but don't do \begin{table}[] that means the table is allowed nowhere: latex will warn about that and remove the option Commented Dec 11, 2023 at 19:01
  • if you want to set floatsep set it in the preamble (or at least on the page before the tables appear) not between the tables. Commented Dec 11, 2023 at 19:03
  • I tried \setlength{\floatsep}{0.1pt} in the preamble, but that did not change anything for me. Commented Dec 11, 2023 at 19:37
  • You have not provided a test document that allows debugging table is not defined by default, it is defined by the documentclass which you have not shown Commented Dec 11, 2023 at 19:40
  • Just added it: \documentclass[runningheads]{llncs} Commented Dec 11, 2023 at 19:49

1 Answer 1

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You used \begin{table}[] which means do not allow the float anywhere.

LaTeX assumes you did not mean that and warns:

LaTeX Warning: No positions in optional float specifier. Default added (so using `htbp') on input line 8.

as it happens it ended up using h so the effective parameter is not \floatsep but \intextsep

enter image description here

\documentclass[runningheads]{llncs} \usepackage{subcaption} \usepackage{booktabs} \usepackage{tabularx} \setlength{\intextsep}{-10.1pt} \raggedbottom \begin{document} \begin{table}[] \caption{S } \label{tab:mytable} \begin{tabular}{@{}llll@{}} \toprule & a & b & q \\ \midrule 0 & 5 & 2 & 9.0 \\ 0 & 5 & 5 & .39 \\ 0 & 5 & 3 & .73 \\ \bottomrule \end{tabular} \end{table} \begin{table}[] \caption{S } \label{tab:mytable} \begin{tabular}{@{}llll@{}} \toprule & a & b & q \\ \midrule 0 & 5 & 2 & 9.0 \\ 0 & 5 & 5 & .39 \\ 0 & 5 & 3 & .73 \\ \bottomrule \end{tabular} \end{table} \end{document}

Note h would not have been defaulted by the standard classes, this is specific to llncs (which you had not mentioned in the original version of the question)

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  • Thanks, that was very helpful. Unfortunately someone closed my question, claiming it was a duplicate, so I modified it to be more clear. Hope it's okay. Commented Dec 11, 2023 at 20:08
  • sure I reopened the question so I could post an answer @somewhere Commented Dec 11, 2023 at 20:10
  • I added \setlength{\intextsep}{-10.1pt} \raggedbottom. But this still suffers from the problem I alluded to: When the table extends beyond the page, it just gets truncated and doesn't start a new page. I'm trying to avoid setting \begin{table}...\end{table} manually. Do you have any suggestions for that? Commented Dec 11, 2023 at 21:41
  • Also, do you mind helping me understand what do you mean by "which means do not allow the float anywhere. ? Commented Dec 11, 2023 at 21:43
  • @somewhere [tbp] means allow floats top bottom or on a float page, [th] means allow floats top or here [h] means allow just here (this usually gets changed to [ht]) so [] means don't allow floats anywhere. An argument of [] is not the same as not having the optional argument at all: use \begin{table} not \begin{table}[] just as \\ is not the same as \\[] (which gives an error) Commented Dec 11, 2023 at 21:47

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