From my TugBoat article on tables:
By default, there is a 0.5em
(usually about half the current font size) space between the columns. We can change this using the o
and the s
keys. The o
key changes the space on the right of the current column; the s
key changes the space of all the following columns until the next o
or s
key.
There are two ways of specifying the parameters of the o
and s
keys. The first is in integer multiples of 0.5em
: s{n}
makes the space equal to n
times 0.5em
. So, to get a space of 1.5em
between columns we can use \starttable[s{3}|l|l|]
. The second way is to specify the distance as an arbitrary TEX dimension. So, we could also have used \starttable[s(1.5em)|l|l|]
. Notice that in the first case, the argument is given in curly brackets; in the second, the argument is given in parentheses.
Thus, to remove the space from the beginning of the first column, add o0
in the first column specifier (one before the first |
); to remove the space from the last column add s0
in the last column specifier (one before the last |
).
\starttext
\starttable[o0|lw(43mm)|lw(43mm)s0|]
\NC {\em Mer uttalade} \NC {\em Mindre uttalade} \NC\AR
\NC {\em bearbetningsegenskaper} \NC {\em bearbetningsegenskaper} \NC\AR
\HL
\NC svetsad metall \NC gjuten metall \NC\AR
\NC handformad gips \NC gjuten gips \NC\AR
\stoptable
\stoptext
which gives

Note that the table
mechanism is the oldest table mechanisms for ConTeXt. A more versatile table mechanism is TABLE
(\bTABLE ...
\eTABLEor for simple tables, its shortcut
\startTABLE ... \stopTABLE
). Using the TABLE
mechanism you can get the same effect as follows:
\startsetups table:frames
\setupTABLE[frame=off]
\setupTABLE[row][2][bottomframe=on]
\stopsetups
\starttext
\startTEXpage
\startTABLE[setups={table:frames}]
\NC {\em Mer uttalade} \NC {\em Mindre uttalade} \NC\NR
\NC {\em bearbetningsegenskaper} \NC {\em bearbetningsegenskaper} \NC\NR
\NC svetsad metall \NC gjuten metall \NC\NR
\NC handformad gips \NC gjuten gips \NC\NR
\stopTABLE
\stopTEXpage
\stoptext

(The defaults are different for the two mechanisms, and therefore the tables look different visually).
s0
as the first column specifier to get rid of it. See the last example on wiki.contextgarden.net/Table – Aditya Dec 7 '12 at 14:56