Getting two tables in LaTeX to have the same (right-aligned) column width

Question

I have two very short and consecutive sections (for a CV), each containing a small table:

\section{Work Experience}

\begin{tabular}{r|p{11cm}}
Current & Your job at Your Company, Town \\
Jan 2009 & What your company does \\
& A description of what you do\\
\multicolumn{2}{c}{}\ 
\end{tabular}

\section{Education}

\begin{tabular}{r|p{11cm}}
Slightly wider first column & University, Town \\
Jan 2009 & Thesis subject \\
& A description of what you did\\
\multicolumn{2}{c}{}\ 
\end{tabular}

So each table has two columns: The first containing the period, aligned to the right. The second: some more info with a certain width, top (and left) aligned.

The problem is that the width of the left column in the two tables is different, and doesn't look nice since the sections (therefore tables) are consecutive and in one page. I cannot give r a width like p:

\begin{tabular}{r{11cm}|p{11cm}}

Does not work. How can I get the widths of the first columns of the two tables the same length while also having them right aligned?

EDIT Thanks for the answers guys, they all work for me so I upvoted all of them, and accepted the one that appealed to me the most (and most upvoted), since you don't have to specify the \hfill in each row. However if you don't want to use the array package for any reason then the other solutions are also great.

Answer 1

You can give both p{width} options, and start each cell in the left with an \hfill.

Answer 2

Here's one solution of many possibilities:

\begin{tabular}{r|p{11cm}}
\parbox{11cm}{\hfill Current} & Your job at Your Company, Town \\
Jan 2009 & What your company does \\
& A description of what you do\\
\multicolumn{2}{c}{}\ 
\end{tabular}

Basically, create a \parbox with the desired width and put an \hfill at the left.

Answer 3

If you use the array package, you can put the \hfill in the header as follows, so you don't have to remember to put it (or a \parbox) in each row.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage{array}
\begin{document}
\section{Work Experience}

\begin{tabular}{>{\hfill}p{5cm}|p{11cm}}
  Current & Your job at Your Company, Town \\
  Jan 2009 & What your company does \\
  & A description of what you do\\
  \multicolumn{2}{c}{} 
\end{tabular}

\section{Education}

\begin{tabular}{>{\hfill}p{5cm}|p{11cm}}
  Slightly wider first column & University, Town \\
  Jan 2009 & Thesis subject \\
  & A description of what you did\\
  \multicolumn{2}{c}{} 
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

to give:

Answer 4

You can use array package to specify a fill command for each row in your first column:

\begin{tabular}{>{\hfill}p{11cm}|p{11cm}|}

For example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array}
\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{>{\hfill}p{5cm}|p{11cm}|}
This is a test & test
\end{tabular}

\begin{tabular}{>{\hfill}p{5cm}|p{11cm}|}
Test & this is a test
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

Answer 5

Here's a variant of @RTBarnard's answer using the tabularx package:

\documentclass[a4paper,twoside,draft,12pt]{article}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\begin{document}

\section{Work Experience}

\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{>{\raggedleft}X|p{8cm}}
Current & Your job at Your Company, Town \\
Jan 2009 & What your company does \\
& A description of what you do\\
\end{tabularx}

\section{Education}

\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{>{\raggedleft}X|p{8cm}}
Somewhat wider than first column, 
overflowing into additional lines & University, Town \\
Jan 2009 & Thesis subject \\
& A description of what you did\\
\end{tabularx}
\end{document}

Notes:

1. Why tabularx? Because it's often easier to know the width you have available for the whole table, and to let TeX calculate the unknown column widths.
2. The first parameter is the overall table width. Here, I've specified \textwidth to fill the width of typeblock, but you can change that to whatever measure you need.
3. I've used \raggedright rather than \hfill: if the item flows onto a second line, \hfill will only right-align the first line of the paragraph.
4. Was the \multicol significant? I've removed it to keep the answer as simple as possible.

Run with XeTeX under TeXLive.