# How to change the column width of a DataFrame

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-change-the-column-width-of-a-dataframe/60047>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** question, dataframes\
**Created:** [April 26, 2021, 5:39pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-change-the-column-width-of-a-dataframe/60047 "2021-04-26T17:39:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ufechner7](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ufechner7/32/51363_2.png) [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2021, 5:39pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-change-the-column-width-of-a-dataframe/60047/1 "2021-04-26T17:39:27Z")

</div>

I have the following data frame:

```julia
julia> df
11729×4 DataFrame
   Row │ time_rel X Y Z                                 
       │ Float64 Array… Array… Array…                            
───────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
     1 │ 0.05 [6.29952e-22, 12.5146, 25.0163, … [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0… [-3.30573e-18, 21.6467, 43.301, …
     2 │ 0.1 [8.98951e-20, 12.577, 25.0894, 3… [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0… [1.68433e-19, 21.6462, 43.33, 65…
     3 │ 0.15 [-3.72055e-20, 12.695, 25.2191, … [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0… [-6.84735e-19, 21.6405, 43.3805,…
     4 │ 0.2 [-4.87891e-18, 12.8217, 25.3771,… [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0… [-4.55766e-18, 21.6244, 43.4044,…
     5 │ 0.25 [9.19222e-19, 12.8774, 25.5466, … [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0… [2.33055e-18, 21.6284, 43.3792, …
     6 │ 0.3 [-3.94529e-22, 12.8533, 25.6785,… [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0… [1.26796e-19, 21.6576, 43.3318, …
     7 │ 0.35 [-4.98143e-19, 12.8388, 25.7189,… [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0… [1.44401e-18, 21.6672, 43.3098, …
     8 │ 0.4 [1.84899e-19, 12.8775, 25.7024, … [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0… [-6.30753e-20, 21.6395, 43.3102,…
   ⋮ │ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮
 11722 │ 586.1 [1.20869e-19, 82.8057, 165.425, … [4.63993e-20, -16.9691, -33.9596… [3.35357e-20, 39.6229, 79.6217, …
 11723 │ 586.15 [4.28343e-19, 82.8001, 165.412, … [-7.72324e-21, -17.0673, -34.149… [-7.82128e-21, 39.7085, 79.7984,…
 11724 │ 586.2 [2.15631e-20, 82.7932, 165.397, … [2.62671e-20, -17.1603, -34.3303… [-5.07658e-20, 39.7979, 79.9815,…
 11725 │ 586.25 [-2.60913e-19, 82.7852, 165.38, … [-1.83576e-20, -17.2479, -34.501… [2.56848e-20, 39.8915, 80.171, 1…
 11726 │ 586.3 [2.44041e-19, 82.7762, 165.362, … [-1.30759e-20, -17.3299, -34.664… [1.25852e-20, 39.9892, 80.3667, …
 11727 │ 586.35 [-2.32302e-19, 82.7662, 165.342,… [-2.92211e-20, -17.4062, -34.816… [-4.5892e-21, 40.0906, 80.5682, …
 11728 │ 586.4 [-1.30687e-19, 82.7554, 165.321,… [-1.30402e-20, -17.4772, -34.96,… [1.49444e-20, 40.1954, 80.7753, …
 11729 │ 586.45 [-2.99227e-20, 82.744, 165.299, … [-1.46538e-20, -17.5431, -35.093… [7.80318e-20, 40.3031, 80.9879, …
                                                                                                         11713 rows omitted

```

I would like to see all elements in the columns X, Y and Z. My screen is wide enough.

I already tried:

```julia
ENV["COLUMNS"]=1000

```

But it had no effect.

Any idea?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Henrique\_Becker](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/henrique_becker/32/15443_2.png) [@Henrique\_Becker](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Henrique_Becker)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2021, 6:00pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-change-the-column-width-of-a-dataframe/60047/2 "2021-04-26T18:00:16Z")

</div>

It is in the [manual introduction](https://dataframes.juliadata.org/stable/man/working_with_dataframes/#Examining-the-Data):

> Printing options can be adjusted by calling the `show` function manually: `show(df, allrows=true)` prints all rows even if they do not fit on screen and `show(df, allcols=true)` does the same for columns.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ufechner7](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ufechner7/32/51363_2.png) [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2021, 6:54pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-change-the-column-width-of-a-dataframe/60047/3 "2021-04-26T18:54:14Z")

</div>

Well, this does not help. All columns are shown, but not the full content of the colums X, Y and Z. The column width is too small, and I would like to know how I can adjust it.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dmolina](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/dmolina/32/5246_2.png) [@dmolina](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/dmolina)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2021, 6:56pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-change-the-column-width-of-a-dataframe/60047/4 "2021-04-26T18:56:54Z")

</div>

I recommend to check [https://github.com/ronisbr/TerminalPager.jl](https://github.com/ronisbr/TerminalPager.jl) if you want to see all rows in the REPL, see [[ANN] TerminalPager v0.1.0](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-terminalpager-v0-1-0/59910).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Henrique\_Becker](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/henrique_becker/32/15443_2.png) [@Henrique\_Becker](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Henrique_Becker)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2021, 7:08pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-change-the-column-width-of-a-dataframe/60047/5 "2021-04-26T19:08:33Z")

</div>

Sorry, just now I noticed that you actually have a column **of arrays**. I am not entirely sure if there is something already done for such a niche use case. The problem here is probably that the `Dataframe` calls `show` and `show` default behaviour for `Arrays` is the one that you are seeing. You either would need to change this behaviour globally, or change the type of the columns to something that is not compacted by `show`.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![pdeffebach](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/pdeffebach/32/10320_2.png) [@pdeffebach](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/pdeffebach)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2021, 7:09pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-change-the-column-width-of-a-dataframe/60047/6 "2021-04-26T19:09:11Z")

</div>

It might not be possible. DataFrames doesn’t use `show` for printing an array within a dataframe, it writes its own method so it has defaults that are more conducive to interactive work.

Best bet is to just stuck with `PrettyTables` directly when you need to show your data frame. Not sure if it will work there either, I guess, though.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ronis\_BR](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ronis_br/32/50999_2.png) [@Ronis\_BR](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Ronis_BR)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2021, 7:26pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-change-the-column-width-of-a-dataframe/60047/7 "2021-04-26T19:26:32Z")

</div>

Hi!

Just pass a very large number to `truncate` argument of `show`:

```julia
julia> show(df, truncate = 100)
100×3 DataFrame
 Row │ time_rel X Y
     │ Float64 Array… Array…
─────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
   1 │ 0.156148 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
   2 │ 0.670685 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
   3 │ 0.218317 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
   4 │ 0.903568 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
   5 │ 0.384331 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
   6 │ 0.87034 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
   7 │ 0.480099 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
   8 │ 0.434823 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
   9 │ 0.408432 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  10 │ 0.0756601 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  11 │ 0.716183 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  12 │ 0.76725 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  13 │ 0.183719 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  14 │ 0.653708 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  15 │ 0.145333 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  16 │ 0.340446 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  17 │ 0.0866462 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  18 │ 0.284077 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  19 │ 0.777791 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  20 │ 0.648991 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  21 │ 0.72242 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  22 │ 0.169519 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  23 │ 0.326246 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  24 │ 0.210356 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  25 │ 0.909383 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  26 │ 0.945082 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  ⋮ │ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮
  76 │ 0.256647 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  77 │ 0.101922 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  78 │ 0.0582223 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  79 │ 0.70046 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  80 │ 0.794336 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  81 │ 0.750497 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  82 │ 0.108739 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  83 │ 0.603001 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  84 │ 0.0611404 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  85 │ 0.577953 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  86 │ 0.655606 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  87 │ 0.491304 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  88 │ 0.819947 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  89 │ 0.194484 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  90 │ 0.469323 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  91 │ 0.969326 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  92 │ 0.96581 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  93 │ 0.901603 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  94 │ 0.944663 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  95 │ 0.878888 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  96 │ 0.727362 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  97 │ 0.0358795 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  98 │ 0.522901 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
  99 │ 0.283858 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
 100 │ 0.904986 [0.307362, 0.334855, 0.934461, 0.885757, 0.0761271] [0.492038, 0.630796, 0.00360602, 0.902196, 0.743641]
                                                                                                             49 rows omitted

```

EDIT: You can also use the parameter `maximum_columns_width` of `pretty_table`: `show(df, maximum_columns_width = 0)`

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ufechner7](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ufechner7/32/51363_2.png) [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2021, 7:32pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-change-the-column-width-of-a-dataframe/60047/8 "2021-04-26T19:32:54Z")

</div>

Thanks a lot, that did the trick!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ufechner7](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ufechner7/32/51363_2.png) [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2021, 7:35pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-change-the-column-width-of-a-dataframe/60047/9 "2021-04-26T19:35:13Z")

</div>

Yes, TerminalPager is very nice, but the parameter truncate=100 is still needed.