Reduce horizontal spacing between columns in a custom list environment

tables

I am tweaking my CV and I am defining a custom list environment. Consider the following MWE:

\documentclass{article}
    
\usepackage{ragged2e}
    
\pagestyle{empty}
      
\setlength{\tabcolsep}{0pt}
\newenvironment{entrylist}{%
  \noindent
  \begin{tabular*}{\textwidth}{@{\extracolsep{\fill}}rl}
}{%
  \end{tabular*}
}
\renewcommand{\bfseries}{}
\newcommand{\entry}[4]{%
  #1&\parbox[t]{10.00cm}{\strut%
    \textbf{#2}%
    \hfill%
    {\footnotesize #3\par}%no!\\%
    #4\vspace{\parsep}%
  }\\}
    
\begin{document}
    
\begin{entrylist}
    
\entry
   {Office}
   {A very fancy building in a very fancy place}
   {}
   {}
  
\entry
   {Website}
   {www.somename.com}
   {}
   {}
    
 \entry
   {Email}
   {somename a aaa}
   {}
   {}
   
 \entry
   {Phone}
   {+00 0000 000000}
   {}
   {}
  
\end{entrylist}
    
\end{document}

The MWE generates the following output:

The only problem that I have is the amount of white space between the left and the right columns. I need to reduce the spacing between both columns without affecting the 10cm length specified in #1&\parbox[t]{10.00cm}{\strut% nor the textwidth specified in \begin{tabular*}{\textwidth}{@{\extracolsep{\fill}}rl}. Essentially, I just need the left column to be closer to the right column. Can anybody help me reduce the white space between both columns?

EDIT

After the comments, I realised my question may have an unclear wording, so let me try again. Im my document, I call several entrylists. I need all such entrylists to satisfy two conditions:

(1) the same, reasonable separation between left & right columns;

(2) the white space between columns to be horizontally aligned.

I don’t seem to be able to achieve (1) & (2) simultaneously. Either I get a reasonable separation between right and left columns or I get the right column to be correctly aligned across entrylists. But, no matter what I try, I don’t seem to get both (1) & (2) at the same time.

I show here why David Carlisle’s answer achieves (1) but not (2). In his answer, David suggests to have:

\documentclass{article}
    
\usepackage{ragged2e}
    
\pagestyle{empty}
      
    \newenvironment{entrylist}{%
      \noindent
  \begin{tabular}{@{}rl}
    }{%
      \end{tabular}
    }
    \renewcommand{\bfseries}{}
    \newcommand{\entry}[4]{%
      #1&\parbox[t]{10.00cm}{\strut%
        \textbf{#2}%
        \hfill%
        {\footnotesize #3\par}%no!\\%
        #4\vspace{\parsep}%
      }\\}
    
\begin{document}
    
\begin{entrylist}
    
\entry
   {Office}
   {A very fancy building in a very fancy place}
   {}
   {}
  
\entry
   {Website}
   {www.somename.com}
   {}
   {}
    
 \entry
   {Email}
   {somename a aaa}
   {}
   {}
   
 \entry
   {Phone}
   {+00 0000 000000}
   {}
   {}
  
\end{entrylist}

\begin{entrylist}
    
\entry
   {Longer name}
   {A very fancy building in a very fancy place}
   {}
   {}
  
\entry
   {Much much longer name}
   {www.somename.com}
   {}
   {}
    
 \entry
   {Email}
   {somename a aaa}
   {}
   {}
   
 \entry
   {Phone}
   {+00 0000 000000}
   {}
   {}
  
\end{entrylist}
    
\end{document}

The output that is generated satisfies (1) but not (2), because the column separation in the first environment is not aligned with the column separation in the second environment. See the output:

I am really sorry for not having worded my question better since the beginning —my bad.

Thank you all for your time.

EDIT I now show how Bernard’s answer achieves the desired output but alters the spacing before a section title. He suggests to have something like

\documentclass{article}
    
\usepackage{ragged2e}
\usepackage{eqparbox}
    
\pagestyle{empty}
      
\newenvironment{entrylist}{%
\noindent
\begin{tabular*}{\textwidth}{@{}r@{\enspace}l@{}}
}{%
  \end{tabular*}
}
\renewcommand{\bfseries}{}
\newcommand{\entry}[4]{%
  \eqmakebox[H][r]{#1}&\parbox[t]{10.00cm}{\strut%
    \textbf{#2}%
    \hfill%
    {\footnotesize #3\par}%no!\\%
    #4\vspace{\parsep}%
  }\\}
  
\begin{document}
    
\begin{entrylist}
    
\entry
   {Office}
   {A very fancy building in a very fancy place}
   {}
   {}
  
\entry
   {Website}
   {www.somename.com}
   {}
   {}
    
 \entry
   {Email}
   {somename a aaa}
   {}
   {}
   
 \entry
   {Phone}
   {+00 0000 000000}
   {}
   {}
  
\end{entrylist}

\section*{Whatever fancy title you can think of}

\begin{entrylist}
    
\entry
   {Longer name}
   {A very fancy building in a very fancy place}
   {}
   {}
  
\entry
   {Much much longer name}
   {www.somename.com}
   {}
   {}
    
 \entry
   {Email}
   {somename a aaa}
   {}
   {}
   
 \entry
   {Phone}
   {+00 0000 000000}
   {}
   {}
  
\end{entrylist}
    
 \end{document}

The output is as follows:

You can check that the subtitle is lower when compared with the original code:

I don’t know why Bernard’s answer lowers the title, but I suspect it may have something to do with the eqparbox package.

Best Answer

You are forcing the two columns as far apart as possible using \extracolsep so the natural thing to do is to use tabular not tabular* and use the natural separation so

\begin{tabular}{@{}rl}

However that produces

due to your setting of

\setlength{\tabcolsep}{0pt}

which says that by default table columns should touch with no separation.

If you delete that line you get

Or if you need that for other parts of the document add some space with eg

\begin{tabular}{r@{\hspace{5pt}}l}

or whatever space you need.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to reduce distance between two columns

To set the amount of intercolumn white-space between any two columns -- say, between columns 1 and 2 -- to 0, you can insert @{} in the corresponding spot in the second argument of the tabularx environment.

Note that because the column type of column 2 is "Z" (which, in turn, is based on the "X" column type) and the first column has a fixed width, the total intercolumn whitespace between columns 1 and 2 will nevertheless nonzero in your example code. This happens because (i) the tabularx environment expands the associated column widths in order to fill up the allocated width and (ii) the width of the first column is probably wider than absolutely necessary to typeset its contents on a single line.

The following modified form of your MWE implements this idea and also applies a few further refinements. E.g., I'd get rid of the unnecessary whitespace ahead of the first column and after the final column, and I'd also left-align (using \raggedright) rather than center-set the first column, to make it visually more distinct from the data columns.

enter image description here

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}  % change if you're not using A4 paper size
\usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry} % change margin settings to desired values
\usepackage{tabularx,booktabs}
\newcolumntype{Z}{>{\centering\let\newline\\\arraybackslash\hspace{0pt}}X}
\newcolumntype{L}{>{\raggedright\let\newline\\\arraybackslash\hspace{0pt}}p}

\begin{document}\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{table}[t]
\caption{Case studies} \label{case-studies}

\smallskip
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{@{} L{4.5cm} @{} *4{Z} @{}}
\toprule
 Nature of unreliability &  Sender SST &  Receiver SST &  Implementation SST &  Retransmission Bound \\
\midrule
Noisy (Single fixed error message) & 
DSST & DSST & DSST & Unbounded \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabularx}
\end{table}
\end{document}

[Tex/LaTex] How to reduce the spacing between columns in a table

In your example you have doubled the column separation using a tabular inside a tabular. Note: LaTeX adds a distance of \tabcolsep before and after each column. In your case you have such a distance before and after the column of the inner tabular of \testmode and before and after the column of the outer tabular. To avoid this, you should add @{} before the first column of the inner tabular and after the last column of the inner tabular:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}
\newcommand{\testmode}[2] {%
    \begin{tabular}{@{}c@{}}% Avoid doubling \tabcolsep
        \textbf{#1} \\ \textbf{d=#2}
    \end{tabular}%
}

\begin{table}[ht]
\begin{tabular}{l | c c c | c c c |}
\cline{2-7}
          & \multicolumn{3}{c|}{\textbf{Single}} & \multicolumn{3}{c|}{\textbf{Double}} \\
\cline{2-7}
          & \testmode{Scalar}{1} & \testmode{SSE-4}{4} & \testmode{AVX-2}{8} & \testmode{Scalar}{1} & \testmode{SSE-4}{2} & \testmode{AVX-2}{4} \\
\hline
\multicolumn{1}{|c|}{\textbf{Eytzinger}                        } &     209.86 &     370.18 &     411.25 &     180.85 &     245.37 &     262.61 \\
\multicolumn{1}{|c|}{\textbf{Classic Offset}                    } &     213.28 &     363.35 &     476.10 &     209.04 &     247.02 &     208.63 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\caption{Throughput in millions of searches per second with vector $X$ of size 15}
\label{tab:results0}
\end{table}
\end{document}

To explain some more: By default LaTeX adds \hskip\tabcolsep before it starts a column and after it has finished a column. So you have the distance \tabcolsep before the first and after the last column and 2\tabcolsep between two columns. If you use @{…} the code of the argument of @ is added instead of the distance. So @{} just removes the distance.

Additional note: I would recommend to avoid vertical rules in tables (see the manual of package booktabs) and to use package siunitx for number columns. And I would not center the elements of the first table row but left-align them. And because d=… in the table head is something like math, you should set it in math mode. In this case I also would not make it bold (using, e.g., \boldmath), because font attributes in math have mostly a semantic (e.g, bold is often used for vectors or sets).

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to reduce distance between two columns

[Tex/LaTex] How to reduce the spacing between columns in a table

Related Question