Add color to a table (cell, row and column) in LaTeX

In this tutorial, I will show you how to add color to a single cell, row, or column of a table in LaTeX.

We use the xcolor package for normal colors but to add colors to the table you need to use the [table] option of this package. So load this package using

\usepackage[table]{xcolor}

Add color to a cell of a table in LaTeX

To color a particular single cell in a table, you can use the \cellcolor{<color-name>} command before the text in that cell.

This way you can highlight important text or data in the table by using different colors in different cells.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}[h]
    \centering
    \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
    \hline
       \textbf{Heading1} & \textbf{Heading1} & \textbf{Heading1}\\
    \hline
        1 & \cellcolor{red}2 & 3\\
    \hline    
        \cellcolor{green}A & B & \cellcolor{yellow}C\\
    \hline    
    \end{tabular}
    \caption{Table with colored cells}
\end{table}
\end{document}

Output:

Add color to a row of a table in LaTeX

In order to add color to a row of a table you can use the \rowcolor{<color-name>} command before starting the row. This allows you to add color to the entire row. Take a look.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}[h]
    \centering
    \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
    \hline
     \rowcolor{green}\textbf{Heading1} & \textbf{Heading1} & \textbf{Heading1}\\
    \hline
     \rowcolor{green!50}1 & 2 & 3\\
    \hline    
      \rowcolor{green!30}  A & B & C\\
    \hline    
    \end{tabular}
    \caption{Table with colored rows}
\end{table}
\end{document}

Output:

Even and odd color combinations for the rows

If you use even and odd color combinations instead of manually adding colors to each row repeatedly, you can create a nicer table with less effort.

For this, you need to use this syntax before the tabular environment:

\rowcolors{starting-row}{odd-color}{even-color}

Here,

• starting-row: From which number row the color will start to be added to the table.
• odd-color: Which color will be added first.
• even-color: Which color will be added in seconds, and so on in even and odd combinations continuously.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}[h]
    \centering
     % \rowcolor{starting-row}{odd-color}{even-color}
     \rowcolors{2}{gray!10}{gray!30}
    \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
    \hline
     \rowcolor{green}\textbf{Heading1} & \textbf{Heading1} & \textbf{Heading1}\\
    \hline
      1 & 2 & 3\\
    \hline    
      A & B & C\\
    \hline    
      1 & 2 & 3\\
    \hline    
      A & B & C\\
    \hline 
      1 & 2 & 3\\
    \hline    
      A & B & C\\
    \hline 
    \end{tabular}
    \caption{Even and odd color combinations for the rows}
\end{table}
\end{document}

Output:

Add color to a column of a table in LaTeX

In this case, you have to use the >{\columncolor{<color-name>}} command at the point before we set the alignment settings. If you want to add color in the first column then you can write like this:

\begin{tabular}{|>{\columncolor{<color-name>}}c |c| c |}

An example will make it easy to understand.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}[h]
    \centering
    \begin{tabular}{|>{\columncolor{green}}c|c|>{\columncolor{yellow}}c|}
    \hline
     \textbf{Heading1} & \textbf{Heading1} & \textbf{Heading1}\\
    \hline
      1 & 2 & 3\\
    \hline    
      A & B & C\\
    \hline    
      1 & 2 & 3\\
    \hline    
    \end{tabular}
    \caption{Table with colored columns}
\end{table}
\end{document}

Output: