How to Put a Table on a New Landscape Page in a Two-Column Paper

A table that needs the full width of a landscape page is easiest to place by temporarily leaving the document’s two-column layout. This gives the table the page width instead of one column’s width, while the surrounding text remains in two columns.

For predictable placement, make the table nonfloating: use \captionof{table} from the caption package and a tabular environment. The example below starts a dedicated landscape page, places the table there, and resumes the two-column layout afterward.

Complete example

The pdflscape package rotates the page in PDF viewers as well as setting up the landscape layout. The caption package provides \captionof for a caption outside a floating table environment.

\documentclass[twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage{pdflscape}
\usepackage{caption}

\begin{document}

Two-column text before the wide table.

\clearpage
\onecolumn
\begin{landscape}
\thispagestyle{empty} % Optional: omit the page number on this page
\centering
\captionof{table}{Example table on a landscape page}
\label{tab:landscape-example}
\begin{tabular}{|l|r|r|}
\hline
Item & First value & Second value \\
\hline
Alpha & 12 & 18 \\
Beta  & 25 & 31 \\
Gamma & 40 & 44 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{landscape}
\twocolumn

Two-column text after the landscape table. See Table~\ref{tab:landscape-example}.

\end{document}

The \clearpage command outputs earlier pending floats before proceeding. \onecolumn also starts a new page and changes the layout to one column; using both makes the intended page break explicit. The landscape environment rotates the page and adjusts the text area for its orientation. The table is inserted directly rather than queued as a float, so it stays at that location. Finally, \twocolumn starts a new page and restores the two-column layout.

The label follows the caption so references use the table’s number. Remove \thispagestyle{empty} if you want the page number. You can also use \small, \scriptsize, or a width-adjusting package if the table is too large for the landscape text area.

Why not use a floating table?

A table environment is a float: its placement options are requests, not guarantees. Even [h] does not mean “put it exactly here.” In a two-column document, wide floats such as table* have additional placement constraints, and rotating a float can make its final page harder to predict.

For a single table that must occupy this particular landscape page, the nonfloating \captionof pattern is usually simpler. If floating behavior is necessary—for example, because several tables must be managed by LaTeX’s float placement system—you can use a table float inside a landscape page and generally request a float page with [p]. Expect LaTeX to choose the final placement, and check the output for floats deferred from earlier pages.

Common mistakes

• Staying in two-column mode: A landscape page does not automatically turn a two-column layout into one column. Switch with \onecolumn before the table.
• Expecting [h] to lock the position: Float options do not guarantee exact placement. Use \captionof when the table must remain at the insertion point.
• Forgetting the page break: Without flushing earlier material, pending floats may appear before the landscape page. Use \clearpage at the transition.
• Using lscape when PDF rotation matters: The lscape package changes the page layout, but pdflscape additionally sets the PDF rotation information so the page normally opens upright in a PDF viewer.
• Leaving the document in one-column mode: Add \twocolumn after the landscape environment if the rest of the paper should return to two columns.

This technique creates one full-page, single-column table between two-column sections. If the table still exceeds the available landscape width, reduce its font size, shorten column contents, or adjust column widths rather than relying on the page rotation alone.