How to Fit a Wide Table on the Page in LaTeX
When a table is wider than the page, use tabularx to auto-wrap columns to \textwidth, or wrap the tabular in \resizebox{\textwidth}{!}{...} to scale it down. For very wide tables, rotate the whole thing with the sidewaystable environment (rotating package). tabularx is cleanest because text wraps instead of shrinking.
Why it happens
A tabular takes exactly the width of its content, so many columns or long cell text push it past the text margin — you get an Overfull \hbox warning and the table bleeds into the margin. You have to wrap the text, scale the box, or rotate the page.
Example
% Best — wrap columns to text width (X columns flex):
\usepackage{tabularx}
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{l X X}
Name & Long description ... & More text ... \\
\end{tabularx}
% Quick scale-to-fit (keeps layout, shrinks font):
\usepackage{graphicx}
\resizebox{\textwidth}{!}{%
\begin{tabular}{lccc} ... \end{tabular}}
% Rotate a very wide table:
\usepackage{rotating}
\begin{sidewaystable} ... \end{sidewaystable}Frequently asked questions
tabularx or resizebox — which should I use?
Prefer tabularx: it wraps cell text so everything stays readable at the normal font size. \resizebox is faster but shrinks the font, which can become too small on wide tables.
How do I shrink column padding instead?
Reduce inter-column space with \setlength{\tabcolsep}{4pt} and/or set a smaller font (\small, \footnotesize) right before the tabular. Often enough for a slightly-too-wide table.
My table is tall, not wide.
Use longtable (from the longtable package) so it breaks across pages, repeating the header row at the top of each page.
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