Help:Tables

The topic of this article is how to create tables with Wikitext or HTML. For information on how to copy spreadsheets from Excel and other programs onto a wiki page, see Copy Spreadsheets into the Wiki.

Quick Reference:

NOTE: This page explains how to create tables with Wikitext or HTML by turning off the FCK editor, or Wiki editing tool. Instructions for creating basic tables for beginners are available in the article basic table instructions for beginners. Advanced instructions for beginning users are not included in this article. Advanced instructions for users who do not want to create tables using Wikitext or HTML are available online at the FCK editor website. Learn more about the FCK editor/editing tool, and how to turn it off and on. Special instructions are available for copying spreadsheets or Excel documents into the Wiki.

What you should know before creating a table
1. Tables that were created in other programs can be imported into the Wiki, however, the process for doing so is time intensive. It may take less time to re-create a table than import an existing table into the Wiki.

2. Tables may be authored in wiki pages using either HTML table elements directly, or using wikicode formatting to define the table. HTML table elements and their use are well described on various web pages and will not be discussed here. The benefit of wikicode is that the table is constructed of character symbols which tend to make it easier to perceive the table structure in the article editing view compared to HTML table elements.

A good general rule of thumb is to use a tables only when necessary. Table markup may complicate page editing.

Wiki table markup summary

 * The above marks must start on a new line except the double || and !! for optionally adding consecutive cells to a line.
 * XHTML attributes. Each mark, except table end, optionally accepts one or more XHTML attributes. Attributes must be on the same line as the mark. Separate attributes from each other with a single space.
 * Cells and caption ( | or ||, ! or !!, and |+ ) hold content. So separate any attributes from content with a single pipe (|). Cell content may follow on same line or on following lines.
 * Table and row marks ( {| and |- ) do not directly hold content. Do not add pipe (|) after their optional attributes. If you erroneously add a pipe after attributes for the table mark or row mark the parser will delete it and your final attribute if it was touching the erroneous pipe!
 * Content may (a) follow its cell mark on the same line after any optional XHTML attributes or (b) on lines below the cell mark. Content that uses wiki markup that itself needs to start on a new line, such as lists, headers, or nested tables, must of course be on its own new line.

Plain Tables
The following table lacks borders and good spacing but shows the simplest wiki markup table structure

Alternative Tables
For more table-ish looking wiki markup cells can be listed on one line separated by ||. This does not scale well for longer cell content such as paragraphs. It works well for short bits of content however, such as our example table.

Extra spaces within cells in the wiki markup can be added, as I have done in the wiki markup below, to make the wiki markup itself look better but they do not affect the actual table rendering.

HTML attributes can be added to tables on this page but have been left out of the following example for simplicity.

Tables with HTML attributes
You can add HTML attributes to make your table look better

border="1"

align="center" border="1"

Attributes on cells
You can put attributes on individual cells. Numbers for example may look better aligned right

Attributes on rows
You can put attributes on individual rows, too.

cellspacing="0" border="1"

cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" border="1"

Width, height
The width and height of the whole table can be specified, as well as the height of a row. To specify the width of a column one can specify the width of an arbitrary cell in it. If the width is not specified for all columns, and/or the height is not specified for all rows, then there is some ambiguity, and the result depends on the browser.

The wiki markup code: 

As it appears in a browser: 

Note that inline CSS  has no effect with some browsers. If compatibility is important, equivalent older constructs like  should work on more browsers.

Setting column widths
To force column widths to specific requirements, rather than accepting the width of the widest text element in a column's cells, follow this example. Note that wrap-around of text is forced.

The wiki markup code: 

To set column widths in a table without headers, specify the width in the first cell for each column, like this:



One application of setting the widths is aligning columns of consecutive tables:

Nowrap
In a table that spans the entire width of a page, cells narrower than the widest cell tend to wrap. To keep an entire column from wrapping, use style=white-space:nowrap in a non-header cell on the longest/widest cell to affect the entire column.

Before:

After:

Tables with HTML attributes and CSS styles
CSS style attributes can be added with or without other HTML attributes

style="color:green;background-color:#ffffcc;" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" border="1"

Scrolling tables
Some tables contain enough data that they don't fit in the allotted space left to right. To create a table that scrolls left to right, put the table within div codes.  &lt;div style="border: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); overflow-y: hidden; overflow-x: auto; padding: 0.2em; width: 99%;" id="imageContainer"&gt; &lt;/div&gt;

Table with TH headings
TH (HTML table headings) can be created by using ! instead of |. Headings usually show up bold and centered by default.

Top headings
Each column

Colspan="2"

Side headings
Default

Right justify

Right justified side headings can be done as follows

Caption
A table caption can be added to the top of any table as follows

Attributes can be added to the caption as follows

Sorting
Tables can be made sortable by adding ; for details see Help:Sorting. Since this can be very useful, it is wise to keep the possibilities and limitations of this feature in mind when designing a table. For example:


 * Do not divide a table into sections by subheaders spanning several rows. Instead, an extra column can be made showing the content of these headers on each row, in a short form.
 * Do not have elements spanning several columns; instead, again, repeat the content on each row, in a short form.
 * In a column of numbers, do not put text such as "ca." in front of a number—it will sort like zero. Do not put text after the number, and do not put a range of numbers (it does not affect the sorting position for numeric sorting mode, and in the case of a range, the first number determines the position, but if, possibly after sorting this or another column, the element is at the top, it will induce alphabetic sorting mode). Instead, put these texts in a separate column. Alternatively, for the greatest flexibility, alphabetic sorting mode with hidden sortkeys can be used.

A long form of abbreviated content can be put as legend outside the table.

Wiki markup  {| class="sortable" border="1" ! Alphabetic !! Numeric !! Date !! class="unsortable" | Unsortable What it looks like in your browser 
 * + Sortable table
 * d || 2 || 2008-11-24 || This
 * b || 8 || 2004-03-01 || column
 * a || 6 || 1979-07-23 || cannot
 * c || 4 || 1492-12-08 || be
 * e || 0 || 1601-08-13 || sorted.
 * }
 * c || 4 || 1492-12-08 || be
 * e || 0 || 1601-08-13 || sorted.
 * }
 * e || 0 || 1601-08-13 || sorted.
 * }

Table with H1, H2, H3 etc. headings
HTML H1, H2, H3, H4 etc. headings can be created the standard wiki markup way with ==equal== signs and must be on a line all by themselves to work.

Preview the whole table. If you click on an edit tab for a heading within a table, edit, and preview, the parent table will display erroneously broken because part of it will be missing.

Keep the heading hierarchy consistent with the rest of the page so that the table of contents at page top works correctly.

{| class="FCK__ShowTableBorders" width="100%" {| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="20"
 * width="50%" |
 * width="50%" |
 * colspan="2" |
 * colspan="2" |

Yummiest

 * Orange
 * Apple
 * Bread
 * Pie
 * Butter
 * Ice cream
 * }
 * Butter
 * Ice cream
 * }

&#124;colspan="2"&#124;
 * width="50%" | {&#124; border="3" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0"

Yummiest
&#124;- &#124;Orange &#124;Apple &#124;- &#124;Bread &#124;Pie &#124;- &#124;Butter &#124;Ice cream &#124;}
 * }

Tips
To merge or select cells press the 'CTRL' key while clicking in the cells.

A good way of formatting a table would be something of the form:

{| width="x%" border="1" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em auto;"

but you could also add:

cellpadding="4"

if you wanted more white space around the text within each cell.

Remember that you don't always have to set the width to 100%. This can be an irritation when the table just contains small amounts of data but is forced to stretch to fit the full screen:

but

You can of course leave the width out and let the system decide, but this can result in tables being too narrow!

The best solution is 'trial-and-error'. Keep using the Show preview button and see what it looks like?

Caveat
Negative numbers

Negative value minus sign can break your table (it may display missing some values) if you start a cell on a new line with a negative number or a parameter that evaluates to a negative number (|-6) because that is the wiki markup for table row, not table cell. To avoid this, insert a space before the value (| -6) or use in-line cell markup (||-6).