If you think about it, a table that is too wide is to wide. There is not
much LyX can do about it. What LyX could do, though is to tell you about it
using some visual markers obtained by parsing the LaTeX log file and
looking for 'overfull \hbox' warnings.
There is a LaTeX hack that one can use to shrink elements that are a bit
too big:
\resizebox{\linewidth}{!}{
% big stuff like a table that is too wide %
}
It is recommended to adjust the font size/spacing first, because fonts do
not scale completely linearly at small sizes. Once the table is nearly the
right size, the command above can be used to make it exactly the desired width.
Having something like this automated (even just the LaTeX hack from above
without choosing a different font size) could be a useful option for people
who don't care about slightly imperfect typesetting and want things to get
done without any LaTeX coding.
Something like a red bar in the source code (maybe with a sign like <-> to
indicate that it's about horizontal spacing) showing that the table was too
wide in the last LaTeX compilation, and an option to "auto-shrink" it for
people who are in a hurry :-)
--
Regards,
Cyrille Artho - http://artho.com/
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision
for the limits of the world.
-- Schopenhauer
