# Relative column width in LaTeX

How can I define a tabular with two columns in LaTeX, where the first column fills 30% of the page width and the second column fills the rest?

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I guess you meant the "second column" and not the "second tabular", right? I corrected that for you. –  Hendrik Vogt Mar 28 '11 at 18:48
yeah, thank you :) –  MBZ Mar 28 '11 at 19:17

You could use the tabularx package.

For example:

\usepackage{tabularx}
...
\noindent%
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{p{.3\textwidth}X}
...
\end{tabularx}


tabularx has the advantage, that you can specify the whole width and use X type columns which fill up the remaining space.

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You could try something likes this:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

\noindent\begin{tabular}{p{\dimexpr.3\textwidth}p{\dimexpr.7\textwidth-4\tabcolsep}}
some text some text some text &  some text some text some text text text text text text text text text text   text text text text text text text text text   text text text text text text text text text   text text text text text text text text text
\end{tabular}

\end{document}


The first column takes 30% of the \textwidth; the second column takes .7\textwidth minus 4 times \tabcolsep (the space between the column and its contents).

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This can be done using the tabularx package.

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