Is there Markdown to create tables? [duplicate]

It depends which Markdown library Stack Overflow is using, but this works on Reddit. Maybe they should share notes.

| Left align | Right align | Center align |
|:-----------|------------:|:------------:|
| This       |        This |     This     |
| column     |      column |    column    |
| will       |        will |     will     |
| be         |          be |      be      |
| left       |       right |    center    |
| aligned    |     aligned |    aligned   |

Elsewhere on Meta, I once learned about the nice Senseful Solutions Format Text as a Table tool.The same facility is now available at the ASCII Table Generator. Of course:

• It's not at all accessible, so not a replacement for true tables.
• It's not Markdown.
• It's an extra step.
• The resulting ASCII tables don't work well on mobile, if too wide, as the mobile theme wraps code blocks instead of showing a scroll bar.

Still, just in case it helps some, it supports different formats:

+------------+---------+
|    Type    |  MySQL  |
+------------+---------+
| Header     | Top Row |
| Auto Align | On      |
+------------+---------+

+------------+---------+
| Type       | MySQL   |
| Header     | None    |
| Auto Align | On      |
+------------+---------+

+---+------------+-------------+
|   |     A      |      B      |
+---+------------+-------------+
| 1 | Type       | MySQL       |
| 2 | Header     | Spreadsheet |
| 3 | Auto Align | On          |
+---+------------+-------------+

╔═══╦════════════╦═════════════╗
║   ║ A          ║ B           ║
╠═══╬════════════╬═════════════╣
║ 1 ║ Type       ║ Unicode Art ║
║ 2 ║ Header     ║ Spreadsheet ║
║ 3 ║ Auto Align ║ Off         ║
╚═══╩════════════╩═════════════╝

Manually creating Unicode box-drawing gives some more control and rounded corners:

╭───╥────────────┬─────────────╮
│   ║     1      │     2       │
╞═══╬════════════╪═════════════╡
│ A ║ Type       │ Manual      │
│ B ║ Header     │ Anything    │
│ C ║      Align │        Sure │
└───╨────────────┴─────────────┘

Still quite ugly, I'd say, if only because of the gray background. And the Unicode characters render differently on different browsers/devices:

You can do this:

Header 1Header 2Header 3
Cell 1      Cell 2      Cell 3      
Cell 3      Cell 4      Cell 5      
Cell 6      Cell 7      Cell 8      

Also:

header1header2header3
cell-----1cell-----2cell-----3
cell-----4cell-----5cell-----6

And the obvious third:

header1header2header3
cell-----1cell------2cell-----3
cell-----4cell------5cell-----6

OK, I'm only serious about the first one. Though if you check the code, you need some nifty  s :/

More <kbd> abominations:

First Name
Donald
Micky
Roger Last Name
Duck
Mouse
Rabbit

First NameLast Name
Donald Duck
Micky Mouse
Roger Rabbit

Stack Overflow doesn't support MathJax, but several sites on the network do, including stats.SE and math.SE (see the full list here). With MathJax, you can use array to create tables:

\begin{array} {|r|r|}
\hline
1 &2 \\
\hline
3 &4 \\
\hline
\end{array}

Which translates to this:

(Sadly, it would seem meta.SO does not support MathJax either, but if this could be brought about, it would be possible to create tables on SO and meta.SO.)

The short answer is that there is a kind of Markdown support for tables in Markdown Extra - I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet (according to Ctrl + F search, at any rate), although we have had GitHub-flavoured Markdown mentioned.

This has been implemented for a long time, and the "syntax" is pretty well-known. One thinks it would be a simple and effective enhancement for SO/SE. As a bonus, a move to Markdown Extra would bring definition lists, too -- and even footnotes (hurrah!).¹ ;)

_{¹ SO might not need 'em, but SE most definitely does! In addition, see now the 58-times UV'ed (as of this writing) "Time to fork markdown?", which explicitly draws attention to footnote and table support.}

You can generate text tables at tablesgenerator like following formats.

You can give input as:

1. SQL result in File -> Paste Table Data
2. File -> Import CSV File
3. Or you can generate table manually

Here you can align column values to left, right, centre.

Without Using Unicode symbols for table borders

+----+-------------+--------+-------+-----+
| id | name        | gender | state | age |
+----+-------------+--------+-------+-----+
| 1  | John Kenedy | male   | NY    | 32  |
+----+-------------+--------+-------+-----+
| 2  | Meresa Oslo | female | HI    | 26  |
+----+-------------+--------+-------+-----+
| 3  | Mike Lanes  | male   | FL    | 25  |
+----+-------------+--------+-------+-----+

Using Unicode symbols for table borders

╔════╦═════════════╦════════╦═══════╦═════╗
║ id ║ name        ║ gender ║ state ║ age ║
╠════╬═════════════╬════════╬═══════╬═════╣
║ 1  ║ John Kenedy ║ male   ║ NY    ║ 32  ║
╠════╬═════════════╬════════╬═══════╬═════╣
║ 2  ║ Meresa Oslo ║ female ║ HI    ║ 26  ║
╠════╬═════════════╬════════╬═══════╬═════╣
║ 3  ║ Mike Lanes  ║ male   ║ FL    ║ 25  ║
╚════╩═════════════╩════════╩═══════╩═════╝

Here is a Markdown table

| id | name        | gender | state | age |
|----|-------------|--------|-------|-----|
| 1  | John Kenedy | male   | NY    | 32  |
| 2  | Meresa Oslo | female | HI    | 26  |
| 3  | Mike Lanes  | male   | FL    | 25  |

Recently, Table option is introduced in the Stack Overflow Documentation Beta - Example section's markdown editing tool.

But it is not available in other Stack Exchanges sites.

Screenshot for reference:

We can use Stack Overflow HTML rendering:

<table style="border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:0"><tr><th style="font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-weight:normal;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;vertical-align:top">url</th><th style="font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-weight:normal;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;vertical-align:top">id</th></tr><tr><td style="font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;vertical-align:top">codegolf.stackexchange.com</td><td style="font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;vertical-align:top">0</td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;vertical-align:top">https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/148927/15214</td><td style="font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;vertical-align:top">1</td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;vertical-align:top">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_golf</td><td style="font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;vertical-align:top">2</td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;vertical-align:top">lichess.org</td><td style="font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;vertical-align:top">3</td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;vertical-align:top">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_poetry</td><td style="font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;vertical-align:top">4</td></tr></table>

I create this snippet with tablesgenerator.

We can hide JavaScript and CSS content, but if we hide HTML we lost the output. There are alternatives to hide stuff, see: How to hide/display a part of the question I create.

CommonMark, a rigorously specified version of Markdown, does support inline HTML tables. Stack Exchange Valued Associates have indicated in the past that they intend to move to CommonMark eventually, and it does support inline HTML blocks that include HTML tables:

http://spec.commonmark.org/0.20/#html-blocks

However, the main reason this wasn't allowed in the original markdown implementation used was due to the ease with which a user could break a page layout using inline HTML tables. Since Stack Exchange allows new users to post content to the page, it was believed to be too big a risk to give them that power.

It may be that they will implement CommonMark and still disable inline HTML tables for this reason or other reasons. Between moderation and some coding for common layout breaking tables uses, I hope they'll be able to enable them.

So there is a possibility that in the next year or so we will have access to proper HTML tables for Stack Exchange content.

If I am reading the Markdown syntax page (then search for "table") correctly, you use regular HTML table tags with an extra set of blank lines surrounding the <table> and </table> tags. Alas, I didn't get it to work here on meta. Feedback appreciated if someone else has figured it out.

At least for GitHub Flavored Markdown there is support for tables. I was originally very discouraged after reading the answers on this question. I'm glad the HTML workarounds are available, but it definitely gets away from the source being human-readable. I then found the following description of support for tables in GitHub Flavored Markdown, which is also working for me when I create content using R Markdown

https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-here/wiki/Markdown-Cheatsheet#wiki-tables

Here is a copy of the table example from that site, which I have also found works great for me in the GitHub or R Markdown use cases where I most use markdown:

Tables

Tables aren't part of the core Markdown spec, but they are part of GFM and Markdown Here supports them. They are an easy way of adding tables to your email -- a task that would otherwise require copy-pasting from another application.

Colons can be used to align columns.

| Tables        | Are           | Cool  |
| ------------- |:-------------:| -----:|
| col 3 is      | right-aligned | $1600 |
| col 2 is      | centered      |   $12 |
| zebra stripes | are neat      |    $1 |

The outer pipes (|) are optional, and you don't need to make the raw Markdown line up prettily. You can also use inline Markdown.

Colons can be used to align columns.

| Tables        | Are           | Cool |
| ------------- |:-------------:| -----:|
| col 3 is      | right-aligned | $1600 |
| col 2 is      | centered      |   $12 |
| zebra stripes | are neat      |    $1 |

The outer pipes (|) are optional, and you don't need to make the raw Markdown line up prettily. You can also use inline Markdown.

It's quite annoying. Especially, as bernd_k has pointed out, with database-related questions. The only solution we have right now is use our finest ASCII art skillz. To avoid the mobile layout mess-up, you don't have to necessarily extend the width of the table all the way to the right:

Header1 | Header2 | Header 3
--------+---------+----------
0       | 1       | 7
2       | 5       | 3
9       | 7       | 2

On SO often I see a number of questions tagged SQL which present their test data by some tabular representation.

Often the first comments ask for datatypes of some columns.

For these cases I would prefer if the OP just uses create table and insert statements.

That makes it easier to verify his/her problem or to try and verify the solution.

An alternative is to put HTML tables tags inside an ꜱᴠɢ file, since ꜱᴠɢ files are XML based, it can contains XHTML content. From there you can use the HTML tags. This also enable you to style borders with arbitrary CSS content. The HTML disabled tags will be<iframe> <script> <input> <video>and<audio>.

The image above contains this code, as you can see there are html in it, you can check this by loading[this url](view-source:http://ytrezq.sdfeu.org/test.svg):

<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" width="100%" height="1000px" preserveAspectRatio="none">
    <defs>
        <style type="text/css"><![CDATA[
            svg
            {
                background-image: url(data:image/svg+xml;base64,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);
            }
        ]]></style>
    </defs>
    <foreignObject width="100%" height="100%" opacity="1">
        <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
            <head>
                <title>anti 404 error example</title>
            </head>
            <body>
                <h1>Found !</h1>
                <p>The requested URL /fghjkl was found on this server.</p>
                <table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2">
                    <tr>
                        <th>Name</th>
                        <th>Cups</th>
                        <th>Type</th>
                        <th>Sugar</th>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                        <td>Wendy</td>
                        <td>10</td>
                        <td>Regular</td>
                        <td>yes</td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                        <td>Jim</td>
                        <td>15</td>
                        <td>Decaf</td>
                        <td>no</td>
                    </tr>
                </table>
            </body>
        </html>
    </foreignObject>
</svg>

It won’t work in Internet Explorer and in Safari >9.

Feel free to use tables with tags like<tr>or<td>!

Update: The official accouncement on table support is here

Original answer follows.

Disclaimer: This is NOT an official response from Stack Exchange.

Disclaimer 2: This feature is in beta testing in SO Teams. It's subject to changes before publicly announced.

Finally in Fall, 2020 ...

Tables, along with a rich-text editor, are coming soon to the public SE.

Tables (Markdown)

Tables (Rendered), plus the RTE

The exact schedule remains unknown, but expect these to be rolled out in the near future (they're fully functional now).

You can create table by using Box Drawing Unicode.

This answer helps the new users about the required box-drawing Unicode uses with Unicode-Key.

For creating Table, the following Unicode are essential:

1. Two lines:

• Horizontal         ━     U+2501
• Vertical             ┃     U+2503

2. Four Corners:

• Top Left          ┏       U+250F
• Top Right        ┓      U+2513
• Bottom Left     ┗      U+2517

• Bottom Right   ┛      U+251B

  By using this you can draw box like:

  ┏━━━┓
  ┃ 1 ┃
  ┗━━━┛
  

  But In order to create columns and rows, it requires following T's:

3. For creating columns:

• Top end         ┳       U+2533

• Bottom end    ┻      U+253B

  Example:

  ┏━━━┳━━━┓
  ┃ 1 ┃ 2 ┃
  ┗━━━┻━━━┛
  

4. For creating rows:

• Left end        ┣       U+2523

• Right end      ┫      U+252B

  Example:

  ┏━━━┓
  ┃ 1 ┃
  ┣━━━┫
  ┃ 2 ┃
  ┗━━━┛
  

5. For giving formate for cells/box at all sides (left+right+top+bottom) :

• Centre Junction       ╋       U+254B

  Example:

  ┏━━━┳━━━┓
  ┃ 1 ┃ 2 ┃
  ┣━━━╋━━━┫
  ┃ 3 ┃ 4 ┃
  ┗━━━┻━━━┛
  

So, finally with the help of this Box Drawing Unicode, we can create table of unlimited rows and columns!

Note: In this answer, Thick Lines are used. For using another line-style visit Table or Official code charts.

While not a table in the sense that data is in cells, to show data in columns, I use HTML <pre> tag.

      CAT_NO |PROD_CODE   |DESCRIPTION |COLOR |
        SH1  |SH          |Shirt       |Blue  |
        SH2  |SH          |Shirt       |Red   |
        BT1  |BT          |Belt        |Black |
        BT4  |BT          |Belt        |Brown |
        WT1  |WT          |Watch       |Silver|
        WT6  |WT          |Watch       |Gold  |

Example question:

Can SQL be used to return a distributed sample set

I made a table generator for MathJax using MathJax' arrays: https://isaurssaurav.github.io/mathjax-table-generator/

Usage:

1. Add required columns and rows.
2. You can add values to cells when the table appears.
3. Click the Generate button to generate MathJax code for the table.

Repository link: https://github.com/isaurssaurav/mathjax-table-generator (any changes are welcome)

If you're OK with some JavaScript, you maybe able to use console.table

/*<ignore>*/console.config({maximize:true,timeStamps:false,autoScroll:false});/*</ignore>*/
const table = [
["Col1", "Col2"],
["Entry1", "Entry2"],
["Entry3","Entry4"]
];
console.table(table)

<!-- https://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/375985/ -->    <script src="https://gh-canon.github.io/stack-snippet-console/console.min.js"></script>

I made a table using $\LaTeX$

$$\begin{array}{c|ccccccc|}
    \lambda & (5)& (4,1)& (3,2)& (3,1,1)& (2,2,1)& (2,1,1,1)&
   (1,1,1,1,1)\\
\hline 
    d_{_\lambda} & 1& 4& 5& 6& 5& 4& 1\\ 
\end{array}$$

as given here (coming from here). But to no avail.

Ending up using the MathJax FAQ on OR.Meta.SE.

This provides this result, on sites with MathJax enabled:

Here is another ugly approach, that you may consider to use. I am illustrating here to show a matrix of numbers.

┏━━━┳━━━┳━━━┳━━━┳━━━┳━━━┳━━━┳━━━┳━━━┓
┃ 1 ┃ 2 ┃ 5 ┃ 7 ┃ 8 ┃ 9 ┃ 6 ┃ 4 ┃ 3 ┃
┣━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━┫
┃ 8 ┃ 3 ┃ 7 ┃ 4 ┃ 6 ┃ 5 ┃ 1 ┃ 9 ┃ 2 ┃
┣━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━┫
┃ 6 ┃ 4 ┃ 9 ┃ 2 ┃ 1 ┃ 3 ┃ 8 ┃ 5 ┃ 7 ┃
┣━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━┫
┃ 2 ┃ 8 ┃ 3 ┃ 9 ┃ 5 ┃ 4 ┃ 7 ┃ 1 ┃ 6 ┃
┣━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━┫
┃ 5 ┃ 6 ┃ 1 ┃ 3 ┃ 7 ┃ 8 ┃ 4 ┃ 2 ┃ 9 ┃
┣━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━┫
┃ 9 ┃ 7 ┃ 4 ┃ 1 ┃ 2 ┃ 6 ┃ 5 ┃ 3 ┃ 8 ┃
┣━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━┫
┃ 3 ┃ 1 ┃ 2 ┃ 6 ┃ 4 ┃ 7 ┃ 9 ┃ 8 ┃ 5 ┃
┣━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━┫
┃ 7 ┃ 9 ┃ 8 ┃ 5 ┃ 3 ┃ 1 ┃ 2 ┃ 6 ┃ 4 ┃
┣━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━╋━━━┫
┃ 4 ┃ 5 ┃ 6 ┃ 8 ┃ 9 ┃ 2 ┃ 3 ┃ 7 ┃ 4 ┃
┗━━━┻━━━┻━━━┻━━━┻━━━┻━━━┻━━━┻━━━┻━━━┛

Paste the table result of https://senseful.github.io/text-table/ this.

It shows like this :-)

+-----------------------------------+------------+--------+ | Col1 | Col2 | NumCol | +-----------------------------------+------------+--------+ | Value 1 | Value 2 | 123 | | This is a row with only one cell | | | | This row is testing html entities | Te
st | 45 | +-----------------------------------+------------+--------+

Now select the table on Stack Overflow and click {} code sample icon.

Then it is formatted like this:

+-----------------------------------+------------+--------+
|               Col1                |    Col2    | NumCol |
+-----------------------------------+------------+--------+
| Value 1                           | Value 2    |    123 |
| This is a row with only one cell  |            |        |
| This row is testing html entities | Te<br />st |     45 |
+-----------------------------------+------------+--------+

I am just noticing that when we reviewed these proposals a while back, this one never got updated even as the corresponding one on DBAs did.

tl;dr: Implementing this in a way that wouldn't allow authors to break some / all page layouts, whether inadvertently or maliciously, is not feasible.

I know. It sucks. But that's HTML tables for ya.

See also: Markdown footnotes?