From asnd@reg.triumf.ca Thu Nov 10 18:30:55 EST 1994
Article: 40151 of comp.text.tex
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From: asnd@reg.triumf.ca (Donald Arseneau)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex,fr.comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: [Q] some problems with {tabular*}
Date: 10 Nov 1994 10:59 PST
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In article <LANDAISF.94Nov10172229@mathieu.ima.enst.fr>, landaisf@mathieu.ima.enst.fr (Frederic Landais) writes...
> 
>so that one column is aligned on the left edge of the page and the
>other column is aligned on the edge, like this :
> 
>\begin{tabular*}{\textwidth}{l@{\hfill}r}

The main problem is that the \hfill is being added to the *contents* of
the second column, not filling the space between the columns.  For that 
you need:   @{\extracolsep{\fill}}  (note \fill, not \hfill).

There are more subtleties though...

There are spaces of 1/2 \tabcolsep at the beginning and the end of each line.
You can get rid of them with empty @{} specifications or with an assignment
\setlength\tabcolsep{0pt} before the table.

The whole table tries to start a paragraph, so it may have a paragraph 
indentation to its left!  You may need to use \noindent\begin{tabular*}.

It is better to use \linewidth rather than \textwidth.  If you ever convert
to two-column page layout, you might get a big surprise!  (Although, if the
table is too wide for a column, you would have to patch it up in any case.)

All together:

\noindent
\begin{tabular*}{\linewidth}{@{}l@{\extracolsep{\fill}}r@{}}

Donald Arseneau                         asnd@reg.triumf.ca