%% 
%%  A DANTE-Edition example
%% 
%%  Example 02-12-2 on page 74.
%% 
%%  Copyright (C) 2010 Herbert Voss
%% 
%%  It may be distributed and/or modified under the conditions
%%  of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.3
%%  of this license or (at your option) any later version.
%% 
%%  See http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt for details.
%% 
%% 
%% ==== 
% Show page(s) 1
%% 
\documentclass[]{article}
\pagestyle{empty}
\setlength\textwidth{177.70511pt}
\setlength\parindent{0pt}
\usepackage[english]{babel}

\usepackage{mdwtab}
\newcolumntype{P}[1][2cm]{%
  >{\raggedright\hspace{0pt}}p{#1}}

\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{| P[1cm] | P | }\hlx{hv}
arbitrary text & arbitrary text again\\\hlx{vh}
\end{tabular}
\end{document}