%% 
%%  A DANTE-Edition example
%% 
%%  Example 06-00-29 on page 194.
%% 
%%  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{225.70511pt}
\setlength\parindent{0pt}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\setlength\textwidth{200pt}

\usepackage{tabularx}
\makeatletter\newcolumntype{M}{>{\@minipagetrue}X}\makeatother

\begin{document}
\begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{|X|M|}\hline
left & right\\\hline
The right list now starts at the same height as this column.
 & \begin{itemize} \item a \item b \item c \end{itemize}\\\hline
\begin{itemize} \item a \item b \item c \end{itemize}
 & The left column is not an M-column now and therefore has vertical space at the
   beginning.\\\hline
\end{tabularx}
\end{document}
