[Tex/LaTex] Automatic adjustment of cell width

tables

My problem is similar to tabular tabularx automatic linebreak (p/m/b doesn't work as expected).

However he had some other issues that I don't have.

I have a two-column article. In this article I have a table with two columns, using the regular tabular environment.

The problem is that the second column doesn't automatically do the linebreaks, probably due to the fact that I set the paragraph width to \textwidth.
I know I can fix this problem by setting something like 0.35\textwidth, however, this is something that is really bugging me.

Isn't there an option/parameter that just tells the last column (far right column), for example, to stop at the margin? I might want to adjust the size of the first column manually, but then, in this case, the second column, should just take the remaining space, up to the margin.

Here the MWE:

\documentclass[a4paper]{IEEEtran}

\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{lipsum}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Here, main documents begins %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\begin{document}

\title{FooBar}
\author{Bar Foo,~\IEEEmembership{foobar@google.com}}

% The paper headers
\markboth{FooBar 2013}%
{FooBar2013}

% make the title area
\maketitle

%% -----------------
%% |   Main part   |
%% -----------------

\lipsum

\noindent
\begin{tabular}{ r p{\textwidth} }
    & \\
    Step 1: & \lipsum[1] \\
    Step 2: & \lipsum[2] \\
    Step 3: & \lipsum[3] \\
    & \\
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

Best Answer

Your list as a table and then as a list, note how the list version breaks into the second column of the page which a tabular can not do.

enter image description here

\documentclass[a4paper]{IEEEtran}

%\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{lipsum,tabularx}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Here, main documents begins %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\begin{document}

\title{FooBar}
\author{Bar Foo,~\IEEEmembership{foobar@google.com}}

% The paper headers
\markboth{FooBar 2013}%
{FooBar2013}

% make the title area
\maketitle

%% -----------------
%% |   Main part   |
%% -----------------

\lipsum

\section{aaa}
\noindent
\begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{@{} r X @{}}
    Step 1: & \lipsum[1] \\
    Step 2: & \lipsum[2] \\
    Step 3: & \lipsum[3] \\
\end{tabularx}

\section{bbb}
\begin{description}
\item[Step 1]
 \lipsum[1]
\item[Step 2]
\lipsum[2]
\item[Step 3]
\lipsum[3]
\end{description}

\end{document}

alternative list settings


enter image description here

\makeatletter
\renewcommand*\@IEEEiedmakelabel[1]{\hspace\labelsep
                                \parbox[t][0pt][t]{\itemindent}{\raggedright\normalfont\bfseries #1}}
\makeatother


\begin{description}

enter image description here

\makeatletter
\renewcommand*\@IEEEiedmakelabel[1]{\hspace\labelsep
                                \makebox[\linewidth][l]{{\normalfont\bfseries #1}}}
\makeatother


\begin{description}
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