[Tex/LaTex] Reduced word spacing when wrapping text in a cell

Question

I'm wrapping text in a table, some of the cells have 4 words in, wrapped to have two in the first line and two in the second. LaTeX introduces a large space between the first two words so that the second word is at the end of the cell, and the spacing looks looks pretty messy. I can't reduce the cell size without it spreading over too many lines and can't increase the cell size without taking up too much space

\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{p{1.6cm} p{1.8cm} p{1.8cm} p{1.8cm} p{1.8cm} p{1.8cm}} \hline 
Wavelength (nm) & Rb trap depth ($\mu$K) &  Cs trap depth ($\mu$K) & Heating rate ($\mu$K/s) & Selectivity & Sustainability (s) \\
1&2&3&4&5&6
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

Here Rb and trap and also Cs and trap are so widely spaced they look like they're in the next column and I don't want to use lines to separate the columns.

Any thoughts on how to stop LaTeX spacing out these words?

Answer 1

You probably don't need justified text here, using \raggedright setting avoids stretching the spaces.

Please always post complete documents not just fragments, as below..

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{array}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}
\setlength\extrarowheight{2pt}
\begin{tabular}{p{1.6cm} *5{>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}p{1.8cm}}} \hline 
Wavelength (nm) & Rb trap depth ($\mu$K) &  Cs trap depth ($\mu$K) &
Heating rate ($\mu$K/s) & Selectivity & Sustainability (s) \\
1&2&3&4&5&6
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}