Introduction

This paper presents a comprehensive survey of the typographic issues for laying out information within a two-dimensional table. Tables are a concentrated form of the more general layout problem; one can find table formatting analogies in both the larger-scale problem of page makeup, and the smaller-scale problem of aligning notation within a mathematical equation.

Few table formatting tools have addressed all the issues raised by this paper. In fact, it was a challenge to identify the various issues that typographers, compositors, and graphic designers have managed with great skill through the traditional graphic arts processes. Thus this paper provides a checklist for the designs and implementations of new table formatting tools, algorithms, and structures.