Cfrgtkky

In my CV, I list my past (and a recent) jobs. For example:

begin{tabular}{r@{emph{ – }}l | p{11cm}}

  emph{Jun 2013} & emph{Aug 2013} & Work position at Company\

end{tabular}

However, I worked at some companies for less than a month: for example:

begin{tabular}{r@{emph{ – }}l | p{11cm}}

  emph{Aug 2012} span & Other Work position at Firm\

end{tabular}

The problem with this second example is that the span does not remove the alignment character (i.e. –) from that particular row. So the question is: how do I remove it from selected rows?

span is a low-level tex primitive. In LaTeX you should use multicolumn to change columns styles:

documentclass{book}



begin{document}

begin{tabular}{r@{emph{ – }}l | p{11cm}}

emph{Jun 2013} & emph{Aug 2013} & Work position at Company\

multicolumn{2}{l|}{emph{Aug 2012}}& Other Work position at Firm\



end{tabular}



end{document}

If you want to right align them in the first cell, you can use phantom to fake the dash:

documentclass{book}

usepackage{array}

begin{document}



begin{tabular}{r@{emph{~–~}}l | p{11cm}}

emph{Jun 2013}& emph{Aug 2013} & Work position at Company\

multicolumn{1}{r@{phantom{emph{~–~}}}}{emph{Jul 2013}}&

& 

Other Work position at Firm\



end{tabular}



end{document}

Whereas the @ specification of the OP's MWE seems to be locked into stone (can't be changed on the fly), the same is not true of the < specification, which is re-evaluated on the fly.

documentclass{article}

usepackage{array}

newcommandmycolsep{emph{ -- }}

newcommandmyspan{letmycolseprelaxspan}

begin{document}

begin{tabular}{r<{mycolsep}@{}l | p{11cm}}

  emph{Jun 2013} & emph{Aug 2013} & Work position at Company\

  emph{Aug 2012} myspan & Other Work position at Firm\

  emph{Jun 2011} & emph{Aug 2011} & Work position at Company\

  emph{Aug 2010} myspan & Other Work position at Firm\

end{tabular}

end{document}

If you want the result left-aligned, and in light of a comment by the OP, I take a slightly altered approach:

documentclass{article}

usepackage{array}

newcommandmycolsep{emph{ -- }}

newcommandmyspan{defmycolsep{phantom{emph{ -- }}}&}

begin{document}

begin{tabular}{r<{mycolsep}@{}l | p{11cm}}

  emph{Jun 2013} & emph{Aug 2013} & Work position at Company\

  emph{Aug 2012} myspan & Other Work position at Firm\

  emph{Jun 2011} & emph{Aug 2011} & Work position at Company\

  emph{Jul 2010} myspan & Other Work position at Firm\

end{tabular}

end{document}

I'd do it in a different way and with a simpler user level syntax:

documentclass{article}

usepackage[a4paper]{geometry}

usepackage{xparse}



ExplSyntaxOn

NewDocumentEnvironment{cvpart}{}

 {

  setlength{tabcolsep}{0pt}

  parnoindent

  begin{tabular*}{textwidth}{

    r

    l

    @{extracolsep{fill}} p{11cm}

   }

 }

 {

  end{tabular*}

 }



NewDocumentCommand{cvrow}{>{SplitArgument{1}{--}}m m}

 {

  tukus_cvrow:nnn #1 { #2 }

 }



cs_new_protected:Nn tukus_cvrow:nnn

 {

  emph{ tl_trim_spaces:n { #1 } }

  tl_if_novalue:nTF { #2 }

   {

    hphantom{~--~} &

   }

   {

    mbox{~--~} & emph{ tl_trim_spaces:n { #2 } }

   }

  & #3 \

 }



ExplSyntaxOff



begin{document}



begin{cvpart}

cvrow{Jun 2013 -- Aug 2013}{

  Work position at Company

  Work position at Company

  Work position at Company

  Work position at Company

  Work position at Company

}

cvrow{Jul 2013}{Other Work position at Firm}

end{cvpart}



end{document}

The cvrow command takes two arguments; if the first argument contains --, one branch is followed and the en-dash is printed. Otherwise just the space is allocated.

Adjust the 11cm to suit your text width.