Question: I am trying to write a short paper with LaTeX and need to add a table with 3 columns.

```
+-------------+-----------------+--------------------------------------+
| AAAAAAAAAA  | BBBBBBBBBBBBBBB | Betty Botter Bought a Bit of Butter  |
|             |                 | but the Butter's Bitter              |
+-------------+-----------------+--------------------------------------+
| CCCCCCCC    | DDDD            | Betty Botter Thought:                |
|             |                 | If I Put This Bitter Butter in My    |
|             |                 | Batter it Will Make My Batter Bitter |
+-------------+-----------------+--------------------------------------+

```

Unfortunately I can't seem to find the correct idiom to do it.

---

I tried:

```
\begin{tabular}{lll} 
    AAAAAAAAAA  & BBBBBBBBBBBBBBB & Betty Botter Bought a Bit of Butter but 
    the Butter's Bitter  \\
    CCCCCCCC  & DDDD & Betty Botter Thought: \newline If I Put This Bitter Butter in My Batter it Will Make My Batter Bitter
 \end{tabular}

```

But LaTeX doesn't do any linebreaks or formatting within the cell. I assume I need to tell it to do so.. But how?

Answer: 
Use the `p` column descriptor:

Change

```
\begin{tabular}{lll} 

```

to

```
\begin{tabular}{llp{5cm}}

```

To explicitly insert line-breaks:

```
CCCCCCCC  & DDDD & \parbox{5cm}{Betty Botter Thought: \\ If I Put This Bitter Butter in My Batter it Will Make My Batter Bitter}

```
This is the answer I found so far for my needs: [Link here](https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/2441/how-to-add-a-forced-line-break-inside-a-table-cell/19678#19678).

It creates a new command that will make a table inside a table in a more proper way:

```
\newcommand{\specialcell}[2][c]{%
\begin{tabular}[#1]{@{}c@{}}#2\end{tabular}}

```

So, if want to do a forced line break inside a cell like here:

```
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
\hline
Foo bar & Foo <forced line break here> bar & Foo bar \\
\hline
\end{tabular}

```

You will end up using a code like this:

```
Foo bar & \specialcell{Foo\\bar} & Foo bar \\    % vertically centered
Foo bar & \specialcell[t]{Foo\\bar} & Foo bar \\ % aligned with top rule
Foo bar & \specialcell[b]{Foo\\bar} & Foo bar \\ % aligned with bottom rule

```

Horizontal alignment can be controlled in the declaration of the new command by changing **c@** to *l@* or *r@*

All credit goes to [egreg](https://tex.stackexchange.com/users/4427/egreg) from the [Tex forum](https://tex.stackexchange.com/). Do upvote his answer !