LaTex table - Column size and text alignment

Question

I am quite a beginner in LaTex and generated the following table:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}


\begin{document}

\begin{table}[h]
\centering
\begin{tabular}{|p{2,5cm}||p{3,5cm}|p{2cm}| p{2cm}|}
 \hline
 \multicolumn{4}{|c|}{Initial Run of Models} \\
 \hline
  Objective & Service Level in \% &  Costs in € & Number of Lines \\
 \hline
Max. direct pass.   & 93.48    &   1,258.41  & 7\\
Min. travel time  &  77.99 & 933.13 & 7\\
 \hline
\end{tabular}
\caption[Initial Run of Models]{\label{Tab:InitialRun}Initial Run of Models}
\end{table}

\end{document}

Is there any way to maintain the width of the columns and still align the text in the columns to be on the right side?

Answer 1

You could use the array package and add >{\raggedleft} :

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{array}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}[h]
\centering
\begin{tabular}{|>{\raggedleft}p{2.5cm}||>{\raggedleft}p{3.5cm}|>{\raggedleft}p{2cm}| >{\raggedleft\arraybackslash}p{2cm}|}
 \hline
 \multicolumn{4}{|c|}{Initial Run of Models} \\
 \hline
  Objective & Service Level in \% &  Costs in € & Number of Lines \\
 \hline
Max. direct pass.   & 93.48    &   1,258.41  & 7\\
Min. travel time  &  77.99 & 933.13 & 7\\
 \hline
\end{tabular}
\caption[Initial Run of Models]{\label{Tab:InitialRun}Initial Run of Models}
\end{table}

\end{document}

---

Personally, I would suggest to use the tabularray package instead. This package makes it easy to set the alignment for row/columns or individual cells.

You could use Q[2.5cm] to specify a width, but if you don't, tabularray will determine a much better width for you.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{tabularray}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}[h]
\centering
\begin{tblr}{
  colspec={|Q||Q|Q|Q|},
  rows={halign=r},
  column{1}={halign=l},
  row{1}={halign=c},
  row{2}={halign=l},
}
 \hline
 \SetCell[c=4]{} Initial Run of Models &&& \\
 \hline
  Objective & Service Level in \% &  Costs in € & Number of Lines \\
 \hline
Max. direct pass.   & 93.48    &   1,258.41  & 7\\
Min. travel time  &  77.99 & 933.13 & 7\\
 \hline
\end{tblr}
\caption[Initial Run of Models]{\label{Tab:InitialRun}Initial Run of Models}
\end{table}

\end{document}

Answer 2

If you use the package array as suggested in the first answer, then you can define in your header one or more newcolumntype s, for example this one called R , right aligned with the width to be assigned to each column. More details here .

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{array}

\newcolumntype{R}[1]{>{\raggedleft\let\newline\\\arraybackslash\hspace{0pt}}m{#1}}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}[h]
  \centering
  \begin{tabular}{|R{2,5cm}||R{3,5cm}|R{2cm}|R{2cm}|}
    \hline
    \multicolumn{4}{|c|}{Initial Run of Models}\\
    \hline
    Objective & Service Level in \% & Costs in € & Number of Lines\\
    \hline
    Max. direct pass. & 93.48 & 1,258.41 & 7\\
    Min. travel time  & 77.99 & 933.13 & 7\\
    \hline
  \end{tabular}
  \caption{\label{Tab:InitialRun}Initial Run of Models}
\end{table}

\end{document}

Here I changed to R all of the four columns but they don't have to be all of the same kind.

Make a search because surely there are many "duplicates" of this question here and on TeX SE .