raggedleft does not work for last column in Table

Question

I want to have a few columns that are aligned right. All works fine, except for the last column, which is aligned left?

\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{dcolumn}
\newcolumntype{N}{<{\raggedleft \arraybackslash}b{15ex}}

\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{l NNN |}
  First & Second & Third & Fourth \\
  \hline
  First    &  1,513 &  1,194 & 1,194 \\
  Second   &  7,831 &  7,783 & 7,763 \\
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

What am I doing wrong? I tried around some time but could not make it work. It is the same if you try to center

Answer 1

Try with > instead of < so it will act on the following column:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{dcolumn}
\newcolumntype{N}{>{\raggedleft\arraybackslash}b{15ex}}

\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{l NNN |}
  First & Second & Third & Fourth \\
  \hline
  First    &  1,513 &  1,194 & 1,194 \\
  Second   &  7,831 &  7,783 & 7,763 \\
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

or if you for some reason prefer it to act on the previous column, place it after your column:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{dcolumn}
\newcolumntype{N}{b{15ex}<{\raggedleft\arraybackslash}}

\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{l NNN |}
  First & Second & Third & Fourth \\
  \hline
  First    &  1,513 &  1,194 & 1,194 \\
  Second   &  7,831 &  7,783 & 7,763 \\
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

Answer 2

With ose of recent array package, which also define w{<align>}{<width>} you can write your table as follows:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array}

\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{l *{3}{w{r}{15ex}} |}
  First     & Second    & Third     & Fourth    \\
    \hline
  First     &  1,513    &  1,194    & 1,194     \\
  Second    &  7,831    &  7,783    & 7,763     \\
\end{tabular}
\end{document}