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authors (basic)

Table basics

PmWiki has two types of table markup; the markup described in this page is useful for creating tables with lots of small cells, while table directive markups help with larger scale tables. For more possibilities with table formatting see Cookbook:FormattingTables.

Tables are created via use of the double pipe character: ||. Lines beginning with this markup denote rows in a table; within such lines the double-pipe is used to delimit cells. In the examples below a border is added for illustration (the default is no border).

Basic table

|| border=1
|| cell 1 || cell 2 || cell 3 ||
|| cell 1 || cell 2 || cell 3 ||

cell 1	cell 2	cell 3
cell 1	cell 2	cell 3

Header cells can be created by placing ! as the first character of a cell. Note that these are table headers, not headings, so it doesn't extend to !!, !!!, etc.

Table headers

|| border=1
||! cell 1 ||! cell 2 ||! cell 3 ||
|| cell 1  ||  cell 2 ||  cell 3 ||

cell 1	cell 2	cell 3
cell 1	cell 2	cell 3

A table can have a caption, indicated by ||!caption!||. Any caption must appear prior to other rows of the table.

Table caption

|| border=1
||! A special table !||
||! cell 1 ||! cell 2 ||! cell 3 ||
|| cell 1  ||  cell 2 ||  cell 3 ||

A special table
cell 1	cell 2	cell 3
cell 1	cell 2	cell 3

Formatting cell contents

Cell contents may be aligned left, centered, or aligned right.

To left-align contents, place the cell contents next to the leading ||.
To center contents, add a space before and after the cell contents.
To right-align contents, place a space before the cell contents and leave the cell contents next to the trailing ||.

Cell alignments

|| border=1 width=100%
||!cell 1      ||! cell 2  ||!       cell 3||
||left-aligned || centered || right-aligned||

cell 1	cell 2	cell 3
left-aligned	centered	right-aligned

Default cell alignments

|| border=1 width=100%
||!cell default||!cell left ||
||default-aligned||left-aligned ||

cell default	cell left
default-aligned	left-aligned

Note that header and detail cells have different default alignments.

To get a cell to span multiple columns, follow the cell with empty cells. (At present there is no markup for spanning rows.)

Column spanning

|| border=1 width=100%
|| |||| right column ||
|| || middle column ||||
|| left column ||||||
|| left column || middle column || right column ||

		right column
	middle column
left column
left column	middle column	right column

Table attributes

Any line that begins with || but doesn't have a closing || sets the table attributes for any tables that follow. These attributes can control the size and position of the table, borders, background color, and cell spacing. (In fact these are just standard HTML attributes that are placed in the <table> tag.)

Use the width= attribute to set a table's width, using either a percentage value or an absolute size.

Table width

|| border=1 width=100% 
|| cell 1 || cell 2 || cell 3 ||
|| c1 || cellcellcellcell2 || cell 3 ||

cell 1	cell 2	cell 3
c1	cellcellcellcell2	cell 3

The border= attribute sets the size of a table's borders.

Bordered and borderless tables

|| border=10 
||!cell 1      ||! cell 2  ||!       cell 3||
||left-aligned || centered || right-aligned||

|| border=0
||!cell 1      ||! cell 2  ||!       cell 3||
||left-aligned || centered || right-aligned||

cell 1	cell 2	cell 3
left-aligned	centered	right-aligned

cell 1	cell 2	cell 3
left-aligned	centered	right-aligned

Use align=center, align=left, and align=right to center, left, or right align a table. Note that align=left and align=right create a floating table, such that text wraps around the table.

Table alignment

|| border=1 align=center
||!cell 1      ||! cell 2  ||!       cell 3||
||left-aligned || centered || right-aligned||

|| border=1 align=left
||!cell 1      ||! cell 2  ||!       cell 3||
||left-aligned || centered || right-aligned||
Notice how text wraps to the right of a table using "align=left".

cell 1	cell 2	cell 3
left-aligned	centered	right-aligned

cell 1	cell 2	cell 3
left-aligned	centered	right-aligned

Notice how text wraps to the right of a table using "align=left".

The bgcolor= attribute sets the background color for a table. At present there is no way to specify the color of individual rows or cells in this type of table (but see Cookbook:FormattingTables).

|| border=1 align=center bgcolor=yellow
||!cell 1      ||! cell 2  ||!       cell 3||
||left-aligned || centered || right-aligned||

cell 1	cell 2	cell 3
left-aligned	centered	right-aligned

Other examples

A more complex table

%define=sp padding-right:1em font-weight:bold%
|| border=1
|| [++Events Calendar++] ||||||||||
|| '''May 2005''' || '''June 2005''' || '''July 2005''' || '''August
2005''' || '''September 2005''' ||
||%sp%'''10'''%%6:30 - 8:30 Big Meeting\\\
%sp%'''17'''%%7:00 - 8:30 Bigger Meeting\\\
%sp%'''24'''%%7:00 - 8:30 Biggest Meeting|| || || || ||
|| '''October 2005''' || '''November 2005''' || '''December 2005''' ||
'''January 2006''' || '''February 2006''' ||
|| || || || || ||

Events Calendar
May 2005	June 2005	July 2005	August 2005	September 2005
106:30 - 8:30 Big Meeting 177:00 - 8:30 Bigger Meeting 247:00 - 8:30 Biggest Meeting
October 2005	November 2005	December 2005	January 2006	February 2006

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How do I create nice tables similar to Product X?

See tables and table directives.