A simple table
| Name | Role |
| ----- | -------- |
| Ana | Design |
| Bruno | Research || Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Ana | Design |
| Bruno | Research |
The dash line under the header is what makes it a table. Without it, the pipes are just text.
Markdown tables. Pipes, dashes, done.
A table is a header row, a line of dashes, and then one line per row, with pipes | between the cells. That is all there is to it. The rest of this page is alignment, formatting inside cells, and the few things a Markdown table cannot do.
On the left, what you type. On the right, what you get. Every result here was rendered by HushJot itself.
The basics
The pipes don’t have to line up
| Name | Role |
| - | - |
| Ana | Design |
| Bruno | Research || Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Ana | Design |
| Bruno | Research |
Lining them up only makes the plain text easier to read. One dash per column is enough.
Alignment
| Left | Centre | Right |
| :--- | :----: | ----: |
| a | b | 1.00 |
| aa | bb | 10.00 || Left | Centre | Right |
|---|---|---|
| a | b | 1.00 |
| aa | bb | 10.00 |
A colon on the left, both sides or the right of the dashes aligns that column. Right-align columns of numbers.
Inside the cells
Formatting in a cell
| Task | Status |
| ---------- | ---------- |
| **Launch** | ~~Draft~~ |
| [Docs](https://hushjot.com) | `v1.2` || Task | Status |
|---|---|
| Launch | |
| Docs | v1.2 |
Bold, italic, strikethrough, links and inline code all work inside a cell.
A pipe inside a cell
| Symbol | Name |
| ------ | ----------- |
| \| | Pipe |
| a \| b | a or b || Symbol | Name |
|---|---|
| | | Pipe |
| a | b | a or b |
Escape it with a backslash, \|, or it starts a new cell. GitHub also takes \| inside backticks; HushJot shows the backslash there, so keep the pipe outside code.
Things a table can’t do
- No merged cells: every row has the same columns.
- No line breaks inside a cell. Keep cells short, or use a list under the table instead.
- No table without a header row. Leave the header cells empty if you don’t want one:
| | |.
Questions
Tables, answered.
- How do I make a table in Markdown?
- Write a header row with pipes between the cells, then a line of dashes with the same number of columns, then one line per row:
| A | B |,| - | - |,| 1 | 2 |. - How do I align a column?
- Put colons in the dash line:
:---for left,:---:for centre and---:for right. - How do I put a line break in a table cell?
- Markdown itself has no way to. GitHub accepts an HTML
<br>in a cell; HushJot shows HTML as text, so there, split the content into more rows or put a list under the table. - Is there a quicker way to make a table?
- In HushJot, ⌘⌥T (Ctrl+Alt+T on Windows and Linux) opens a picker that inserts a table of the size you choose; then Tab moves to the next cell and Enter to the row below. ⌘Enter inserts a row below the cursor; on a phone, the ⊞ key on the key bar does.
- Does every Markdown app support tables?
- Tables come from GitHub Flavored Markdown, not the original Markdown, but almost every modern app supports them, including GitHub, GitLab, Obsidian and HushJot.
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