Set table width same size of text width in LaTeX

In this tutorial, I will show you how to set a table width same as the text width (\textwidth). You can do it with two methods as below:

• Set table width with \resizebox
• Set table width with tabularx

Set table width with \resizebox

In order to use this \resizebox command, you have to load the graphicx package. To set the table width same as the text width you have to use the tabular environment inside the \resizebox command and use \textwidth command as an argument with this command. like this.

\resizebox{\textwidth}{!}{
\begin{tabular}
...
\end{tabular}
}

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{lipsum} 

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1][1-8]
\begin{table}[h]

\resizebox{\textwidth}{!}{
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|}
  \hline
  This is a sentence & This is a sentence too \\
  \hline
  This is a sentence & This a sentence too \\
  \hline
\end{tabular}
}
\caption{Se the table width same as \textbf{textwidth}}
\end{table}

\end{document}

Output:

However, with this technique, you may face some font size issues.

Set table width with tabularx

This is the most recommended technique. First of all, you have to load the tabularx package then you can use the tabularx environment to create a table.

To set this table width the same as \textwidth, you have to use \textwidth as an argument with tabularx and it also provides X column type, a new column type to fill out the rest of the space. Take a look.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage{lipsum} 

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1][1-8]
\begin{table}[h]

\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{|X|X|}
  \hline
  This is a sentence & This is a sentence too \\
  \hline
  This is a sentence & This a sentence too \\
  \hline
\end{tabularx}
\caption{Se the table width same as \textbf{tabularx}}
\end{table}

\end{document}

Output: