Automated line breaks in LaTeX tables

latex

In my dissertation, I have a glossary that explains some abbreviations I use. I put this in a table to make it look nicer. However, LaTeX does not break lines at the end of the page.

I know that I could force a line break at any point in the table, but it is a long table (much work!) and manual line breaks make the text look jagged and ugly. Is there a nice way to either have a nice-looking glossary or make LaTeX break lines automatically in a table?

…if LaTeX wouldn't do these things every so often I would really love it. The way it is, I constantly switch between affection and anger…

Best Answer

Why are you using a table for your glossary? Are you aware of the glossaries package? It lets you create beautiful glossaries with a minimum effort.

If you still want to use a table, I suggest you to use the tabularx, it defines the X column type which creates columns of adjustable width with word wrapping.

For example:

\usepackage{tabularx}

...

\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{ |l|X| }
  \hline
  word1 & long definition... \\
  \hline 
  word2  & long definition...  \\
  \hline
\end{tabularx}