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From: duchier@cs.yale.edu (Denys Duchier)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: How wide are the columns?
Message-ID: <DUCHIER.90Oct25135646@albania.cs.yale.edu>
Date: 25 Oct 90 17:56:46 GMT
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In-reply-to: rcbatg@rwc.urc.tue.nl's message of 25 Oct 90 15:15:19 GMT

In article <rcbatg.656867719@rwc.urc.tue.nl> rcbatg@rwc.urc.tue.nl (Tonnie Geraets) writes:
 >   duchier@cs.yale.edu (Denys Duchier) writes:
 >   >Read p185 of the LaTeX manual.  The following code should then become
 >   >clear:
 >
 >   >\newlength{\length}
 >   >\setlength{\length}{0.5\linewidth}
 >   .
 >   >\begin{tabular*}{\linewidth}{|p{\length}|p{\length}|}
 >
 >   >--Denys
 >
 >   But what to do I have some more columns (whith different widths) and I want
 >   a column which fills the rest of the line. Something like this:
 >
 >   | This is column one | two | anonother | And finaly, this column fills up to |
 >   |                    |     |           | the end of the line.                |
 >   | another entry      | two | column    | I don't want to specify the width   |
 >   |                    |     |           | myself, simply because I don't know |

How about this:

\newlength{\length}
\newlength{\width}
\setlength{\length}{\linewidth}
\addtolength{\length}{-8\tabcolsep}
\settowidth{\width}{This is column one}
\addtolength{\length}{-\width}
\settowidth{\width}{two}
\addtolength{\length}{-\width}
\settowidth{\width}{anonother}% sic!
\addtolength{\length}{-\width}
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular*}{\linewidth}{|l|l|l|p{\length}|}
...
\end{tabular*}
\end{center}

If you are using Mittelbach's implementation of tabular, you may have
to add the following line:

\addtolength{\length}{-5\arrayrulewidth}

--Denys