PmWiki has two types of table markup; the markup described in this page is useful for creating simple tables with lots of small cells, while table directive markup helps with larger scale or more complex tables. For more possibilities with formatting simple tables, see Cookbook:Rowspan in simple tables and Cookbook:Formatting tables.

Table basics

Simple tables are created via use of double pipe characters: ||. Lines beginning with this markup denote rows in a table or a formatting line. Within table row lines the double-pipe is used to delimit cells. In the examples below a border is added for illustration (the default is no border).

The first line in the markup (initial double bars "||") is required. After the double bars, there may be optional formatting commands for the table such as border or width.

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

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.

|| border=1
||! 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.

|| border=1
||! 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 ||.

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

|| border=1 width=100%
||!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:

|| border=1 width=100%
|| |||| right column ||
|| || right two columns ||||
|| || middle column || ||
|| left column || ||||
|| left two columns |||| ||
|| entire row ||||||
|| left column || middle column || right column ||

To get a cell to span multiple rows, add ++ after the cell text (2 or more plus characters make the cell span that many rows):

|| border=1
||Span 3 rows+++ ||Regular cell ||
||Cell 2nd column ||
||Cell 2nd column ||
||Some text      || Span 2 rows ++ ||
||First column   ||

If a cell text needs to end with 2 or more plus characters, insert the empty space character [==] after them.

To make the rowspan more visible when editing, you can insert a cell with only caret "^" characters and it will be ignored:

|| border=1
||Span 3 rows+++ ||Regular cell    ||
||^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^||Cell 2nd column ||
||^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^||Cell 2nd column ||
||Some text      || Span 2 rows++  ||
||First 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, an absolute size, or *.

See also $SimpleTableDefaultClassName.

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

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

|| border=10 width=70%
||!cell 1      ||! cell 2  ||!       cell 3||
||left-aligned || centered || right-aligned||

|| border=0 width=70%
||!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.

|| border=1 align=center width=50%
||!cell 1      ||! cell 2  ||!       cell 3||
||left-aligned || centered || right-aligned||
Notice how text does not wrap with a table using "align=center".

|| border=1 align=left width=50%
||!cell 1      ||! cell 2  ||!       cell 3||
||left-aligned || centered || right-aligned||
Notice how text wraps to the right of a table using "align=left".

|| border=1 align=right width=50%
||!cell 1      ||! cell 2  ||!       cell 3||
||left-aligned || centered || right-aligned||
Notice how text wraps to the left of a table using "align=right".

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 width=70%
||!cell 1    ||! cell 2 ||!     cell 3||
||left-align || center  || right-align||

Sortable tables

To allow readers to reorder a table, give it the class="sortable" attribute:

|| class="sortable simpletable"
||!   m||!Geographic zone     ||!Highest point     ||!Country  ||
|| 3700||Arctic               ||Gunnbjørn Fjeld    ||Greenland ||
|| 8848||North Temperate Zone ||Mount Everest      ||Nepal     ||
|| 5790||North Tropical Zone  ||Cayambe            ||Ecuador   ||
|| 6768||South Tropical Zone  ||Huáscarán          ||Peru      ||
|| 6960||South Temperate Zone ||Aconcagua          ||Argentina ||
|| 4892||Antarctic            ||Mount Vinson       ||(none)    ||

• This feature has to be enabled in local configuration, see $EnableSortable. It will then work both for simple tables as above, and for table directives with the class="sortable" attribute.
• The optional "simpletable" class is available in core skins and possibly other skins, it should define reasonably simple table styles.
• The first row of the table needs to have heading cells with ||! separators which can be clicked to order the rows by the column.
• If the last row of your table should be a footer that is not sorted, use the class "sortable-footer" instead of "sortable". If you use ||! separators in the footer, they will also allow the rows to be sorted, like the header cells.

Data types: By default, the rows are sorted numerically, if the cells contain unformatted numeric values, or alphabetically. You can define the sorting data type of a column by adding to the heading cell an empty WikiStyle element:

• %sort-numeric-us%%% - cells in the column contain US-formatted numbers like 1,234.56.
• %sort-numeric%%% - cells in the column contain SI-formatted numbers like 1 234,56.
• %sort-date%%% - cells in the column contain dates or date-times that will be parsed by the browser. Dates like "2023-11-19" or "2023-11-19 14:09:11" should be correctly parsed, other dates in English might be correctly detected or not.
• %sort-time%%% - the cell contains a <time datetime="..."></time> element, and its "datetime" value should be used for sorting. Markup like @2022-01-08T10:07:08Z or {(ftime "%L" "{*$LastModifiedTime}")} would output a <time> element in the timezone of the visitor, with more or less precision depending on $EnableLocalTimes, but the "datetime" attributes should allow precise sorting.

FAQ

|| border=1 rules=rows frame=hsides
|| cell 1 || cell 2 || cell 3 ||
|| cell 1 || cell 2 || cell 3 ||

|| border=1 rules=cols frame=vsides
||! cell 1 ||! cell 2 ||! cell 3 ||
|| cell 1  ||  cell 2 ||  cell 3 ||

||border="1" style="border-collapse:collapse" cellpadding="5" width=66%
||!Header ||! Header || '''Header'''||
||cells   ||  with   ||      padding||
||        ||         ||             ||

table.column td.col1 { width: 120px; }
table.column td.col3 { width: 40px; }