to make a ruber-lengthed column to stretch to the end:

\usepackage{tabularx} % in the preamble

\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{crllcX}

or whatever: the X column is a p-like column with implicit (i.e., stretchable) width.

Newsgroups:  comp.text.tex
Date:        29 Mar 2004 18:28:57 GMT

> I've got two questions on table.
>
> - How to make my last column of the table stretch to the end,
>   using the rest of the line space?

http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=fixwidtab

> - Does the table entry has to be on one line?
>
> About the 2nd question, here is my test file:

> I get the following error:
>
> ! LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item.
>
> See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.
> Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
>  ...
>
> l.20 ... 4 & \centering 5 & \centering 6 \\ \hline
>
> What's wrong?

http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=tabcellalign

Ulrike Fischer

> > http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=fixwidtab[]
>
>hmm, after reading it several times, I think you meant to suggest the
>tabulary package:
>
>,-----
>| The tabulary package (by the same author) provides a way of
>| "balancing" the space taken by the columns of a table. The package
>| defines column specifications C, L, R and J, giving, respectively,
>| centred, left, right and fully-justified versions of space-sharing
>| columns. The package examines how long each column would be
>| "naturally" (i.e., on a piece of paper of unlimited width), and
>| allocates space to each column accordingly.
>`-----

actually, no. tabulary shares out the space between several variable-width columns, in an equitable way; tabularx is quicker and does an equally good job if there's only one stretchable column..

>However, I still don't know how to make a ruber-lengthed column to stretch
>to the end... Could someone show me how please?

\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{crllcX}

or whatever: the X column is a p-like column with implicit (i.e., stretchable) width. i thought it was obvious — plainly need more examples in the faq answer (noted in list of things-to-do).

Robin

http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=fixwidtab

There are two basic techniques for making fixed-width tables in LaTeX: you can make the gaps between the columns stretch, or you can stretch particular cells in the table.

\begin{tabular*}{\columnwidth}{@{\extracolsep{\fill}}lllr}

http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=tabcellalign

One often needs to alter the alignment of a tabular p ('paragraph') cell, but problems at the end of a table row are common. If we have a p cell that looks like

... & \centering blah ... \\

one is liable to encounter errors that complain about a "misplaced \noalign" (or the like). The problem is that the command \\ means different things in different circumstances: the tabular environment switches the meaning to a value for use in the table, and \centering, \flushright and \flushleft all change the meaning to something incompatible. Note that the problem only arises in the last cell of a row: since each cell is set into a box, its settings are lost at the & (or \\) that terminates it.

The simple (old) solution is to preserve the meaning of \\:

\def\PBS#1{\let\temp=\\%
  #1%
  \let\\=\temp
}

which one uses as:

... & \PBS\centering blah ... \\

(for example).

The technique using \PBS was developed in the days of LaTeX 2.09 because the actual value of \\ that the tabular environment used was only available as an internal command. Nowadays, the value is a public command, and you can in principle use it explicitly:

... & \centering blah ... \tabularnewline

but the old trick has the advantage of extreme compactness.

The \PBS trick also serves well in array package "field format" preamble specifications:

\begin{tabular}{... >{\PBS\centering}p{50mm}} ...