Tables, charts and data in a printed book
A table pasted out of a spreadsheet keeps the spreadsheet's habits: a grid line around every cell, a header row shaded blue, numbers in whatever alignment the software defaulted to, and a typeface with nothing to do with the rest of the book. It reads as an import, because it is one.
A chart has the problem worse. It was drawn for a screen — wide, in color, at whatever size the window happened to be — and in the book it is reproduced small, in black ink, with nothing to hover over. Both need rebuilding rather than placing.
A table is typeset, not pasted
Set a table in the book's own body typeface, one or two points below the body size, and align every column by what is in it.
- Text columns align left. Left edges give the eye a place to start. A centered column of words has no consistent edge and is harder to scan.
- Numbers align on the decimal. The one that matters most. When the decimal points line up, the digits line up by place value, and a reader sees at a glance that one figure is ten times another. Ragged numbers hide that completely. For integers, align right — the same rule with an invisible decimal.
- Headers match their columns. A header over a numeric column aligns with the numbers, not the column's left edge.
- Units belong in the header, not in every cell. "Revenue (thousands)" once, rather than "k" appended to forty numbers.
Use rules — the horizontal lines — sparingly. The book convention is a rule above the header, one below it, and one under the last row, which is often all a table needs. Vertical rules are almost never necessary: the space between columns already separates them, and a full grid slows reading down. If your columns feel like they are drifting together, add space before you add a line.
If a table runs over a page break, the header row repeats at the top of the continuation and the caption does not. A reader who turns the page to a headerless block of numbers has to turn back to find out what the third column is.
When the table is too wide for the measure
A spreadsheet is as wide as you let it be. A book page is not, and a table that does not fit has three honest fixes.
Rotate the page. A single landscape page in an otherwise portrait book is normal. The table is set sideways, the reader turns the book, and the convention is that its top faces the outside edge. Use it for the genuinely wide table you cannot cut down.
Set it smaller. A point or two below the body size is fine; much below that and nobody will read it. Tiny type is also the first thing to break down in print-on-demand reproduction.
Restructure it. Usually the right answer and the one nobody tries first. Twelve columns often means two tables of six split by subject, or one table with the rarely-consulted columns moved to an appendix. Ask which columns the reader is comparing; the ones that are there because the spreadsheet had them can go.
A chart drawn for a screen is wrong for the page
Three things are true of a printed chart and not of a screen chart: it is small, it is black, and it does not respond to the reader.
Small means a chart occupying a third of a 6 x 9 page is around four inches wide. Every label, tick and line has to be legible at that size, and a screen chart's type is far too small once it is scaled down.
Black means color carries no information. Two series distinguished only by red and blue become two identical gray lines. Distinctions have to survive grayscale: solid against dashed, heavy against light, a filled marker against a hollow one. A color interior is a real option with a real cost — see Color inside the book, and what it costs — but design the chart to work in black anyway, because black is what the proof and any monochrome reprint will show.
No interaction means every fact has to be on the page. Nothing is revealed by hovering. So redraw, with three changes:
- Fewer series. A screen chart can carry eight lines because the reader can isolate one. In print, three or four is the practical ceiling. Split the rest into a second chart.
- Direct labels instead of a legend. Put each series' name at the end of its own line. The reader stops having to move their eye to a key and match it by appearance — impossible anyway once everything is gray.
- Less furniture. Drop the background fill, the gridline on every increment, the 3D effect and the drop shadow. Keep the axis labels, a few gridlines, and the data.
In the Interior Formatter. Charts and tables that come in as images are checked against their printed size, so you find out before the proof that a figure is landing below print resolution. Start a book → · about the Interior Formatter
Captions, numbers and where things sit
Number tables and figures separately and continuously — Table 1, Table 2; Figure 1, Figure 2 — or by chapter in a long book, as Table 3.1, Table 3.2. Either scheme works; mixing them does not.
Every one gets a caption saying what it shows and, where the data is not yours, where it came from. A table's caption sits above it and a figure's below — a convention worth following, because readers of nonfiction expect it.
Refer to each by its number — "as Table 4 shows" — and never by position. "The table below" is wrong the moment the composed page puts it overleaf, and you will not know that until the book is paginated.
Which leads to the placement rule: a table or figure sits near its first mention, not exactly at it. Forcing a figure to the precise line that names it means either breaking the page early and leaving a gap, or shrinking the figure to fit the space left. Both are worse than the top of the next page. Give it the nearest position where it sits cleanly and let the number connect it to the text.
If your book has more than a handful of either, add a list of tables or figures to the front matter, after the contents. A reader consulting a data-heavy book uses it constantly. See What goes in the front of a book, and in what order.
Export at print resolution, or as vector
The last mistake is the most common: a chart screenshotted or exported at screen resolution, which looks fine on the monitor and prints soft.
Export as vector — PDF, SVG or EPS — if your tool can, because vector artwork has no resolution and stays crisp at any size. Otherwise export the raster image at the size it will print, at print resolution, which means rendering it far larger than it looks on screen. Scaling a small image up afterward does not add detail. The full explanation is in Putting images inside a book.
Make yours
Everything here is built into the tools, and they are free to use: name your book, bring your manuscript or your artwork, and work as long as you like. You only pay when you want the files without the preview watermark.
Next: Putting images inside a book · Also in this guide: Workbooks, journals and books people write in · Color inside the book, and what it costs · Does your nonfiction book need an index?