Documentation/content/markdown/tables-in-markdown.md

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key title parent order TablesInMarkdown Tables in Markdown Markdown 70

Markdown files can contain tables to structure data.

Table syntax

Markdown tables are written ("drawn") using the characters pipe |, dash - and colon :.

A simple table looks like this:

| This   | is    | a       |
| ------ | ----- | ------- |
| simple | table | example |

This	is	a
simple	table	example

The table columns do not have to align in the un-rendered text, but it improves readability to keep everything aligned in the un-rendered form as well.

Some editors automatically align the table structure.

The first line of a table forms the head of the table. It is separated from the rest of the data by a line of dashes.

| Name   | Comment                                                                 |
| :----- | :---------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Alice  | Always involved in various communications                               |
| Bob    | A good guy, who likes to communicate with Alice                         |
| Malroy | Not so nice guy. Tries to mess with the communication of Alice and Bob. |

Name	Comment
Alice	Always involved in various communications
Bob	A good guy, who likes to communicate with Alice
Malroy	Not so nice guy. Tries to mess with the communication of Alice and Bob.

The line following the head may contain formatting help to the renderer.

The location of the colon : (if any) modifies how the table is rendered.

If the colon is to the left of the line of dashes separating data from the header, then the data is rendered left-aligned.

For example

| Left oriented rendering |
| :---------------------- |
| 150.0                   |
| or text                 |

renders as

Left oriented rendering
150.0
or text

Whereas:

| Right oriented rendering |
|-------------------------:|
| 150.0                    |
| or text                  |

is rendered as

Right oriented rendering
150.0
or text

If the rendering hint is placed on both sides of the dashed line, the data is rendered as centered:

| Centered rendering |
| :----------------: |
|       150.0        |
|      or text       |

Is rendered as:

Centered rendering
150.0
or text

Providing no rendering hint leaves it up to the renderer to decide how to render the data. Left-aligned is a common default.

| Un-hinted rendering |
|---------------------|
| 150.0               |
| or text             |

Is rendered as:

Un-hinted rendering
150.0
or text

Table variations

Some renderers allow you to omit the delimiting pipe symbols | at the side of the table:

This   | is    | a
------ | ----- | ---
simple | table | example

is rendered as

This	is	a
simple	table	example

This is even considered an error by some editors.

However, for readability reasons we propose to use the delimited form within Codeberg.