How do I right-align certain cells in a (booktabs) table?
Using \multicolumn
you can override the column specification for a particular cell:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}
\centering
\caption{A comparison of statistics for forest and trailside ash saplings}
\begin{tabular}{lll}
\toprule
Statistic & Forest & Trailside \\ \midrule
\rowcolor[gray]{.9} Sample size (trees) & 243 & 257\\
Mean (mm) & 133.19 & 139.39 \\
\rowcolor[gray]{.9} Median (mm) & 93 & 100\\
Standard deviation (mm) & 110.36 & 117.96 \\
\rowcolor[gray]{.9} Standard error (mm) & 7.08 & 7.36\\
95\% Confidence intervals (mm) & ~ & ~ \\
\multicolumn{1}{r}{Upper bound} & 147.07 & 153.81 \\
\multicolumn{1}{r}{Lower bound} & 119.31 & 124.96 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}
I would also suggest you to use \centering
instead of the center
environment to avoid adding extra vertical spacing.
You can use
\multicolumn{1}{r}{Upper bound}
I suggest you to look at the siunitx package that provides an S
column type for correctly output numerical data in tables.
Your table needs very little additional tweaking to achieve your objectives, I believe. In the MWE below, I use the siunitx
package (and its column type "S") to align the numbers on the decimal point, as well as the \multicolumn
command. Happy TeXing!
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}
\centering
\caption{A comparison of statistics for forest and trailside ash saplings}
\smallskip
\sisetup{table-format = 3.2}
\begin{tabular}{lSS}
\toprule
Statistic & \multicolumn{1}{l}{Forest} & \multicolumn{1}{l}{Trailside} \\
\midrule
\rowcolor[gray]{.9}
Sample size (trees) & 243 & 257\\
Mean (mm) & 133.19 & 139.39 \\
\rowcolor[gray]{.9} Median (mm) & 93 & 100 \\
Standard deviation (mm) & 110.36 & 117.96 \\
\rowcolor[gray]{.9} Standard error (mm) & 7.08 & 7.36 \\
95\% Confidence intervals (mm) & ~ & ~ \\
\multicolumn{1}{r}{Upper bound} & 147.07 & 153.81 \\
\multicolumn{1}{r}{Lower bound} & 119.31 & 124.96 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}