Why RaggedRight and RaggedLeft don't work inside a box in this case?

Question

I'm trying to align the minipage with the supervisor information on the left, and the minipage with the candidate information on the right. But the \RaggedRight and \RaggedLeft commands seem to have no effect. I checked that the ragged2e package is properly included and I also tried to use the basic version of LaTex \raggedright and \raggedleft but I didn't notice any changes. I don't get errors and both minipages remain aligned to the left, as I think is by default. The commands seem to have no effect, why is that?

% !TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode
% !TEX TS-program = pdflatex

\makebox[\textwidth]{\null\hfill\def\arraystretch{2}% % to change the spacing change this number
\begin{minipage}[t]{.5\textwidth}\RaggedRight
    \begin{tabular}[t]{@{}l@{}}
        \fixednamesfont \textbf{\thesissupervisortext} \\
        \namesfont \xmakefirstuc{\thesissupervisoronetitle}~\thesissupervisoronename~\thesissupervisoronesurname\\
        \namesfont \xmakefirstuc{\thesissupervisortwotitle}~\thesissupervisortwoname~\thesissupervisortwosurname\\
    \end{tabular}
\end{minipage}
%
\hfill
%
\begin{minipage}[t]{.5\textwidth}\RaggedLeft
\begin{tabular}[t]{@{}l@{}}
    \fixednamesfont \textbf{\thesiscandidatetext} \\
    \namesfont \thesiscandidatename~\thesiscandidatesurname
\end{tabular}
\end{minipage}\hfill\null}\\

Answer 1

We can't test your code fragment because all used command are undefined.

So, if I replace them with simple text and insert your minipages into \fbox (that the size of minipages and positioning of containing text are visible), both \RaggedRight and \RaggedLeft as expected. However, you can insted them tray to use \raggeright and raggedleft instructions.

MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{ragged2e}

\begin{document}
    \begin{center}
\fbox{% remove in real document 
\begin{minipage}[t]{.45\textwidth}\RaggedRight
   \begin{tabular}[t]{@{} l @{}}
some text\\
some text\\
some text
    \end{tabular}
\end{minipage}
} % remove in real document 
%
\hfill
%
\fbox{% remove in real document 
\begin{minipage}[t]{.45\textwidth}\RaggedLeft
\begin{tabular}[t]{@{} l @{}}
some text\\
some text\\
some text
\end{tabular}
\end{minipage}
}% remove in real document 
    \end{center}
\end{document}

Answer 2

The commands \RaggedRight/\RaggedLeft and similar determine the alignment of regular paragraphs (which e.g. allow linebreaking). Table cells (except for the special case of the p type where table cells contain arbitrary paragraphs) generally only contain a single line which is never broken and does not follow this alignment but instead has explicit alignment specifications in the column type. This column type is given by the argument for \begin{tabular}. In your case {@{}l@{}} specifies (beside the technical @{} which influence spacing) one l type column, so a left aligned column. You can make it right aligned instead by changing the l to a r.

Answer 3

You have

\makebox[\textwidth]{%
  \null\hfill
  \begin{minipage}{0.5\textwidth}
  <some text>
  \end{minipage}
  %
  \hfill
  %
  \begin{minipage}[t]{.5\textwidth}
  <some text>
  \end{minipage}\hfill\null
}

which produces an overfull box, because of the space after the first minipage. And the \makebox is useless, by the way; the only purpose it serves it is to localize the setting to \arraystretch.

The two minipages serve no purpose either, because your aim is just to push the first tabular to the left and the second one to the right. Just use \noindent in front and \hfill between them. Try

\begingroup
\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{2}%
\noindent
\begin{tabular}[t]{@{}l@{}}
  \fixednamesfont \textbf{\thesissupervisortext} \\
  \namesfont \xmakefirstuc{\thesissupervisoronetitle} \thesissupervisoronename\ \thesissupervisoronesurname\\
  \namesfont \xmakefirstuc{\thesissupervisortwotitle} \thesissupervisortwoname\ \thesissupervisortwosurname\\
\end{tabular}\hfill
\begin{tabular}[t]{@{}l@{}}
  \fixednamesfont \textbf{\thesiscandidatetext} \\
  \namesfont \thesiscandidatename\ \thesiscandidatesurname
\end{tabular}\par
\endgroup

which would do exactly the same job as you want.