A
table
is an arrangement of columns and rows that organizes and positions data or images. Tables can be created on Wikipedia pages using special
wikitext
syntax, and many different styles and tricks can be used to customise them.
Tables can be used as formatting instrument, but consider using a
multi column list
instead.
To automatically insert a table, click
or
(Insert a table) on the
edit toolbar
. In the Vector toolbar the table icon is in the "Advanced" menu. If "Insert a table" is not on the toolbar follow
these directions
to add it.
The following text is inserted when
Insert a table
is clicked:
{| class="wikitable" |+ Caption text |- ! Header text !! Header text !! Header text |- | Example || Example || Example |- | Example || Example || Example |- | Example || Example || Example |}
This code produces the following table:
Caption text
Header text
Header text
Header text
Example
Example
Example
Example
Example
Example
Example
Example
Example
The sample text ("Header text" or "Example") is intended to be replaced with actual data. You can fill in the table while in source mode. Or use the Visual Editor (VE).
With the
Visual Editor
(VE) you directly fill in the cells without having to go through wikitext. See the
VE section
farther down. VE makes it easy to add or delete rows or columns. In VE this is what shows up when clicking the table icon (in the "Insert" menu):
Consecutive table header cells may be added on same line separated by double marks (
!!
); or start on new lines, each with its own single mark (
!
).
Table data cell
|
or
||
Optional
Consecutive table data cells may be added on same line separated by double marks (
||
) or start on new lines, each with its own single mark (
|
). This mark is also used to separate
HTML attributes
from cell and caption contents.
Table end
|}
Required
The above marks must
start on a new line
, except the double marks (
||
and
!!
) for optionally adding consecutive cells to a single line.
Blank spaces
at the beginning of a line are ignored.
Content
may either follow its cell mark on the same line (after any optional HTML attributes); or on lines below the cell mark (beware of undesired paragraphs though). Content that uses wiki markup that itself needs to start on a new line, such as with lists, headings, or nested tables, must be on its own new line.
To insert a
pipe character
(
|
) into a table caption or cell, use the
|
escaping markup.
Each mark, except table end (
|}
), optionally accepts one or more
attributes
. Attributes must be on the same line as the mark.
Cells
and
captions
(
|
or
||
,
!
or
!!
, and
|+
) hold
content
—separate any attribute from its content with a single pipe (
|
), with attributes preceding content.
Table
and
row
marks (
{|
and
|-
) do not directly hold content. Do
not
add a pipe (
|
) after any attributes.
Commonly included attributes in tables include:
class
, for example
class="wikitable"
;
style
, for
CSS
styling;
scope
, to indicate row or column header cells;
rowspan
, to extend cells by more than one row;
colspan
, to extend cells by more than one column.
Although HTML table syntax also works, special
wikicode
can be used as a shortcut to create a table. The
vertical bar
or "pipe" symbol (
|
) codes function exactly the same as
HTML table
markup, so a knowledge of HTML table code helps understand pipe code. The shortcuts are as follows:
The entire table is encased with curly brackets and a vertical bar character (a pipe). So use
{|
to begin a table, and
|}
to end it. Each one needs to be on its own line:
{|
table code goes here
|}
An optional
table
caption
is included with a line starting with a vertical bar and plus sign "
|+
" and the caption after it:
{|
|+
caption
table code goes here
|}
To start a new
table
row
, type a vertical bar and a
hyphen
on its own line: "
|-
". The codes for the cells in that row start on the next line.
{| |+ The table's caption
|-
row code goes here
|-
next row code goes here
|}
Type the codes for each
table cell
in the next row, starting with a bar:
{| |+ The table's caption |-
|
cell code goes here
|-
|
next row cell code goes here
|
next cell code goes here
|}
Cells can be separated with either a new line and a single bar, or by a double bar "
||
" on the same line. Both produce the same output:
Wiki source
{| |+ The table's caption |- |Cell 1 || Cell 2 || Cell 3 |- |Cell A |Cell B |Cell C |- |Cell x |Cell y||Cell z |}
Rendered result
The table's caption
Cell 1
Cell 2
Cell 3
Cell A
Cell B
Cell C
Cell x
Cell y
Cell z
Optional
parameters
can modify the display and styling of cells, rows, or the entire table. The simplest way to add styling is to set the
wikitable
CSS
class, which in Wikipedia's
external style sheet
is defined to apply a gray color scheme and cell borders to tables using it:
A table can be useful even if none of the cells have content. For example, the background colors of cells can be changed with cell parameters, making the table into a diagram, like
meta:Template talk:Square 8x8 pentomino example
. An "image" in the form of a table is much more convenient to edit than an uploaded image.
Each row must have the same number of cells as the other rows, so that the number of columns in the table remains consistent. For empty cells, use the zero width space
or older non-breaking space
as content to ensure that the cells are displayed.
With
colspan
and
rowspan
cells can span several columns or rows;
(see
§ Mélange
, below)
When cell
content
that contains a
pipe
character does not render correctly, simply add an empty format for that cell. The second pipe character in a line of
|
cell code
will not display; it is reserved for adding a format. Wikicode between the first and second pipe is a format, but since emptiness or an error there is ignored, it just disappears. When this happens, add a dummy format.
(For a real format, see
§ HTML attributes
.)
Use a third pipe character to render your first pipe character.
Rendering the first pipe when it is the third pipe in the cell code.
The third and later pipe characters will render, but to display two
adjacent
pipe characters in a cell, (instead of having them act as the first pipe at the start of a new cell), other pipe-rendering options are needed. Instead of using a dummy format to render a pipe, you can render it directly by 1)
|
(preferred) or 2)
html
:
|
or
|
. Each line of cell code in the following table has one wikicode pipe.
Template
{{
!
}}
, because of the order in which things are parsed, is equivalent to typing in a single | pipe character. The single
|
parser-tag does not apply here. See how they do not
escape
the second pipe, as | and
|
did above:
Column headers
are identified by
! scope="col" |
instead of
|
.
Row headers
are identified by
! scope="row" |
instead of
|
. Each header cell should be on a separate line in the wiki-markup. The
scope="col"
and
scope="row"
markup should be used for column and row headers in all data tables because it explicitly associates the header with the corresponding cells, which helps ensure a consistent experience for screen readers. The Manual of Style
requires the use of scope for column and row headers
.
For
complex tables
, when a header spans two columns or rows, use
! scope="colgroup" colspan="2" |
or
! scope="rowgroup" rowspan="2" |
respectively to clearly identify the header as a column header of two columns or a row header of two rows. When headers are unclear, this can cause accessibility issues; therefore, use
id=
to set a unique value without spaces on each header, then reference the id(s) on the data cells that have unclear headers using
headers=
with a space separating each id.
Header cells typically render differently from regular cells, depending on the browser. They are often rendered in a bold font and centered. If this rendering is not desired from an aesthetic point of view, the table can be styled with the "plainrowheaders" class which left-aligns the row headers and removes the bolding.
Note that with row headers you need to use a separate row in the wikitext for the row header cell. See the correct format in the last table in the previous section. Note the use of single and double pipes (bars).
Here below is what the table looks like if the data cell wikitext is on the same line as the row header wikitext. Note that the data cell backgrounds are the same shade of gray as the column and row headers. Data cells should have a lighter background.
If you have a long wiki table in the above format and want to quickly make the data cell backgrounds lighter, then use
tab2wiki
.
Copy the table right off the page (not the wikitext) and paste it into tab2wiki. Check the following boxes:
First element in a column is a header
First element in a row is a header
Uncheck this:
Compress table
Check or uncheck "sortable table" depending on your needs. Then click "Do it". Copy the wikitext results back to the wiki. You must use
class=wikitable
to get the background shading.
Tab2wiki fixes the problem by using the long table format in the wikitext. Note that only single bars (pipes) are used below.
The row header cells are on separate lines in the wikitext. You will have to add back the scopes to make
class=plainrowheaders
work, and get non-bolded row header text.
Wiki source
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" |+ The table's caption !Column header 1 !Column header 2 !Column header 3 |- !Row header 1 |Cell 2 |Cell 3 |-
!Row header A
|Cell B
|Cell C
|}
Rendered result
The table's caption
Column header 1
Column header 2
Column header 3
Row header 1
Cell 2
Cell 3
Row header A
Cell B
Cell C
Another way to fix the problem is to copy the table wikitext to a text editor such as freeware NoteTab Light. The following method works for tables with flag templates. In the table wikitext do a mass replace of
}}||
with
}}^P|
^P
is the NoteTab Light code for a line break. That puts the row header cells on a separate line in the wikitext. And you don't lose your templates or styling. And you maintain most of the compressed wikitext format.
Note that in this example
class="wikitable"
is used to style the table with Wikipedia's external style sheet for tables. It adds borders, background shading, and bold header text.
Explicit table
captions
are recommended for data tables as a best practice; the Wikipedia Manual of Style
considers them a high priority
for accessibility reasons, as a caption is explicitly associated with the table, unlike a normal wikitext heading or introductory sentence. All data tables on Wikipedia require captions. A caption is provided with the
|+
markup, similar to a table row (
|-
), but it does not contain any cells, and is not within the table border. Captions are always displayed, appearing as a title centered (in most browsers), above the table. A caption can be styled (with inline, not block, CSS), and may include wikilinks, reference citations, etc.
A
summary
provides an overview of the data of a table for text and audio browsers, and does not normally display in graphical browsers. The summary (also a high Manual of Style priority for tables) is a synopsis of content, and does not repeat the caption text; think of it as analogous to an image's
alt
description. A summary is added with
summary="
Summary text here.
"
, on the same line as the
{|
that opened the table, along with any
class=
and other parameters for the table as a whole. The
summary=
attribute is, however,
obsolete in HTML 5
.
Wiki markup
example showing left-aligned caption with a source citation:
{| class=wikitable |+ style="text-align: left;" | Data reported for 2014–2015, by region
|-
!
scope=col | Year !! scope=col | Africa !! scope=col | Americas !! scope=col | Asia & Pacific !! scope=col | Europe |-
!
scope=row | 2014 | 2,300 || 8,950 ||
''9,325''
|| 4,200 |-
!
scope=row | 2015 | 2,725 ||
''9,200''
|| 8,850 || 4,775 |}
style=max-width:Xem
can be used in the top line of a table's wikitext to specify the maximum width of the table as a whole. For some tables this is all that is needed.
The following table excerpt is from
this version
of
List of countries by wealth per adult
. The goal is to
narrow the data columns,
and have the
country names spread out on one line each.
All of this makes it easier when scanning down a country list. But the country names have to wordwrap if needed (in narrow portrait views on some cell phones, etc.). So
style=max-width:Xem
was used in selected column heads. Here is the relevant header wikitext:
! Country or [[subnational area]] ! style=max-width:4em | Median wealth per adult ([[USD]]) ! style=max-width:4em | Mean wealth per adult ([[USD]]) ! style=max-width:4em | Adult population
Here below is what it looks like without
style=max-width:Xem
Narrow your browser window to see how the table below contracts versus the one above. The table above maintains one line per country for narrower browser and screen widths, and is therefore more readable in long country tables. The table format below can greatly increase in number of lines, and require more vertical scrolling.
Em units
are good because they increase in size along with the zoom setting.
Max-width
is better than using breaks
in headers, because header breaks annoy people using
screen readers
due to the pauses.
Max-width
also allows tables to shrink to fit in smaller tablet and phone screens.
style=width:Xem
does not narrow further in any circumstance, and so its use should be avoided. See why on this
subpage
.
For the same reason
class=nowrap
should be avoided.
The height of the whole table can be specified, as well as the height of a row. The height of the middle row below is set to
style=height:7em
and the total height of the whole table is set to
style=height:14em
units. Doing the math shows that the height of the top and bottom rows are 3.5 em units each. 3.5 + 3.5 + 7 = 14. If there is wordwrap then the height will increase to accommodate this.
Wiki markup
{| class=wikitable style=height:14em; |- ! Left !! Center !! Right |- | Top left cell || Top center cell || Top right cell
|- style=height:7em
| Middle left cell || Middle center cell || Middle right cell |- | Bottom left cell || Bottom center cell || Bottom right cell |}
Add a border around a table using the CSS property
border:
thickness style color
;
, for example
border:3px dashed red
. This example uses a solid (non-dashed) gray border that is one pixel wide:
Wiki source
{| style="border-spacing: 2px; border: 1px solid darkgray;" ! style="width: 140px;" | Left ! style="width: 150px;" | Center ! style="width: 130px;" | Right |- |
[[File:StarIconBronze.png|120px|Bronze star icon]]
|
[[File:StarIconGold.png|120px|Gold star icon]]
|
[[File:StarIconGreen.png|120px|Green star icon]]
|- style="text-align: center;" | Bronze star
||
Gold star
||
Green star |}
Rendered result
Left
Center
Right
Bronze star
Gold star
Green star
Note the bottom-row texts are centered by
style="text-align: center;"
while the star images are not centered (i.e. left aligned).
As long as the
File:
specs omit the parameter
|thumb
they don't show the caption lines in the table (only during mouse-over). The border color
darkgray
matches typical tables or infoboxes in articles; however, it could be any color name (as in
style="border: 1px solid darkgreen;"
) or use a
hex-color
(such as:
#DDCCBB
).
If all cells have the same border color, the resulting double borders may not be wanted; add the
border-collapse: collapse;
CSS property on the table opening tag to reduce them to single ones (
cellspacing=...
is
obsolete
).
Additionally, the
W3C
allows
the use of the otherwise obsolete
border=
attribute on the table root (
{|
) if its value is "1". This adds a one-pixel border, in the default color, to the table and all of its cells at once:
Using the
border-collapse
property to combine the double borders, as described above:
Wiki source
{| border=1 style="border-collapse: collapse;" |- | A || B || C |- | D || E || F |}
You can place two or more tables side by side. But the tables must wrap (one dropping below the other) in narrow screens if horizontal scrolling is to be avoided. Here is the relevant wikitext below. More info
here
.
<
div
style
=
display:inline-table
>
--Table--
div
>
<
div
style
=
display:inline-table
>
--Table--
div
>
Note that the space between the tables happens because
is on a line by itself. If you want no space use this:
Narrow your browser window to see the tables below wrap. This works in mobile view too. Click on "mobile view" at the bottom of any Wikipedia page.
style=display:inline-table
can not be added within the table wikitext. It must be added outside the table wikitext. This is because the table captions will not be correctly placed in mobile portrait view, or other narrow mobile screens, when the tables wrap. This is especially noticeable if the caption is longer. In that case when one table drops below the other, then the caption will be severely wrapped above only the first column of the table.
You can add images to the mix too. Add
vertical-align:top;
to align an item to the top. See
CSS vertical-align property
for other options. The tables and images will wrap depending on screen width. Narrow your browser window to see. For example:
Table 1
Name
Color
Fred
Orange
Bob
Green
Lindy
Yellow
New York City
Table 2
Animal
State
Raccoon
Maine
Whale
Alaska
Manta Ray
Florida
Add
vertical-align:bottom;
to align an item to the bottom. You can choose the alignment for each item. Note the star aligned to the bottom.
Table 1
Name
Color
Fred
Orange
Bob
Green
Lindy
Yellow
New York City
Table 2
Animal
State
Raccoon
Maine
Whale
Alaska
Manta Ray
Florida
You can add
indentation
by adding margin styling to the first div:
Two table classes
floatleft
and
floatright
(case sensitive) help floating the table and adjusting table margins so that they do not stick to the text.
floatleft
floats the table to the left and adjusts right margin.
floatright
does the opposite. Example:
This paragraph is before the table. The text in column 2 spans both rows because of format specifier "rowspan=2" so there is no coding for "Col 2" in the 2nd row, just Col 1 and Col 3. {| class="wikitable floatright" | Col 1, row 1 | rowspan="2" | Col 2, row 1 (and 2) | Col 3, row 1 |- | Col 1, row 2 | Col 3, row 2 |} {| class="wikitable floatleft" | Col 1, row 1 | rowspan="2" | Col 2, row 1 (and 2) | Col 3, row 1 |- | Col 1, row 2 | Col 3, row 2 |} Sed ut perspiciatis, unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam eaque ipsa, quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt, explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem, quia voluptas sit, aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos, qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt, neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt, ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit, qui in ea voluptate velit esse, quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum, qui dolorem eum fugiat, quo voluptas nulla pariatur?
As it appears in a browser:
This paragraph is before the table. The text in column 2 spans both rows because of format specifier "rowspan=2" so there is no coding for "Col 2" in the 2nd row, just Col 1 and Col 3.
Col 1, row 1
Col 2, row 1 (and 2)
Col 3, row 1
Col 1, row 2
Col 3, row 2
Col 1, row 1
Col 2, row 1 (and 2)
Col 3, row 1
Col 1, row 2
Col 3, row 2
Sed ut perspiciatis, unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam eaque ipsa, quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt, explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem, quia voluptas sit, aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos, qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt, neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt, ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit, qui in ea voluptate velit esse, quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum, qui dolorem eum fugiat, quo voluptas nulla pariatur?
Note that although there are other ways to float a table, such as
style="float:left;"
,
style="float:right;"
, the only parameters that allow you to position the table
under
a floated multimedia object are
floatleft
and
floatright
. For example:
Aligning the table with
floatleft
produces:
Col 1, row 1
Col 2, row 1 (and 2)
Col 3, row 1
Col 1, row 2
Col 3, row 2
Sed ut perspiciatis, unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam eaque ipsa, quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt, explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem, quia voluptas sit, aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos, qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt, neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt, ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit, qui in ea voluptate velit esse, quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum, qui dolorem eum fugiat, quo voluptas nulla pariatur?
But aligning it with
style="float:left;"
produces:
Col 1, row 1
Col 2, row 1 (and 2)
Col 3, row 1
Col 1, row 2
Col 3, row 2
Sed ut perspiciatis, unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam eaque ipsa, quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt, explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem, quia voluptas sit, aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos, qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt, neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt, ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit, qui in ea voluptate velit esse, quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum, qui dolorem eum fugiat, quo voluptas nulla pariatur?
align="center"
is
deprecated in HTML5
, and does not work well in Mediawiki software. For example; it will not override the left alignment of tables via
class=wikitable
.
Centered tables can be achieved, but they don't "float"; that is to say, no text appears to either side. The trick is
{| style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: none;"
[note 1]
Wiki markup:
Text before table... {| class="wikitable" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: none;" |+ Cells left-aligned, table centered |- ! scope="col" | Duis ! scope="col" | aute ! scope="col" | irure |- | dolor || in reprehenderit || in voluptate velit |- | esse cillum dolore || eu fugiat nulla || pariatur. |} ...text after table
Note: because they cause
accessibility issues
, nested tables should be avoided whenever possible.
Seven different (blue) tables are shown nested inside the cells of a table. Automatically, the two tables |A| and |B|B| are vertically aligned instead of the usual side-by-side of text characters in a cell. And
float
is used to fix each of tables |C| and |D| to their own position within one cell of the table. This may be used for charts and schematics, though as noted above, this is deprecated.
Nested tables must start on a new line.
Like other parameters, colors can also be specified for a whole row or the whole table; parameters for a row override the value for the table, and those for a cell override those for a row.
style=background-color:
works in sortable header cells.
style=background:
does not. It breaks sorting in that cell. See
Help:Sorting
.
There is no easy way to specify a color for a whole column: each cell in the column must be individually specified. Tools can make it easier.
Wiki markup
{| style="background: yellow; color: green;" |- | stu || style="background: silver;" | vwx || yz |- style="background: red; color: white;" | stu || style="background: silver;" | vwx || yz |- | stu || style="background: silver;" | vwx || yz |}
Rendered result
stu
vwx
yz
stu
vwx
yz
stu
vwx
yz
To make the table blend in with the background, use
style="background: none;"
or
style="background: transparent;"
. (Warning:
style="background: inherit;"
, does not work with some older browsers, including IE6, so ensure that the table will be intelligible if the coloring preference fails.)
To force a cell to match one of the default colors of the
class=wikitable
template
, use
style="background:#EAECF0;"
for the darker header, and
style="background:#F8F9FA;"
for the lighter body. #A2A9B1 is the wikitables border color.
At the start of a cell, add your parameter followed by a single pipe. For example,
style="width: 300px"|
sets that cell to a width of 300 pixels. To set more than one parameter, leave a space between each one.
Wiki source
{| style="color: white;" |- | style="background: red;"|cell1 || style="width: 300px; background: blue;"|cell2 | style="background: green;"|cell3 |}
By default, text is aligned to the vertical middle of the cell:
Row header
A longer piece of text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
Short text
Row header
Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Imagine someone scrolling down the page, seeing the tops of "empty" columns, and wondering why they're empty.
Short text
To align the text to the top of the cell, apply the
style="vertical-align: top;"
CSS to the rows (unfortunately, it seems to be necessary to apply this individually to every single row). The
valign=...
attribute is
obsolete
and should not be used.
Wiki source
{| class=wikitable style="width: 400px;" |- style="vertical-align: top;" ! scope="row" style="width: 10%;" | Row header | style="width: 70%;" | A longer piece ... | style="width: 20%;" | Short text |- style="vertical-align: top;" ! scope="row" | Row header | Excepteur sint occaecat... | Short text |}
Rendered result
Row header
A longer piece of text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
Short text
Row header
Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Imagine someone scrolling down the page, seeing the tops of "empty" columns, and wondering why they're empty.
By default, text is aligned to the left of data cells.
By default, text is aligned to the center of header cells.
All of the above is true in both desktop and mobile view.
The alignment of header text in tables with
class=wikitable
stays centered regardless of global right or left text alignment via
style=text-align:VALUE
on the top line of table wikitext.
Header text alignment in tables without
class=wikitable
follows the global text alignment of the table.
Text alignment set in individual cells overrides everything else.
The contents of a cell can be indented or padded on any side. Also, the text can be aligned. In the second row the text is aligned to the right. See the following examples.
Wiki source
{| class=wikitable |- | Cell content that is not indented or padded |- | style="padding-left: 2em;" | style="padding-left: 2em;" |- | style="text-align:right; padding-right: 2em;" | style="text-align:right; padding-right: 2em;" |- | style="padding-top: 2em;" | style="padding-top: 2em;" |- | style="padding-bottom: 2em;" | style="padding-bottom: 2em;" |- | style="padding: 3em 5%;" | style="padding: 3em 5%;" {{space|4}} (Top and Bottom: 3em. Left and Right: 5%) |- | style="padding: 3em 4em 5%;" | style="padding: 3em 4em 5%;" {{space|4}} (Top: 3em. Left and Right: 4em. Bottom 5%) |- | style="padding: 3%;" | style="padding: 3%;" {{space|4}} (Top, Right, Bottom, and Left: all 3%) |- | style="padding: 1em 20px 8% 9em;" | style="padding: 1em 20px 8% 9em;" {{space|4}} (Top: 1em. Right: 20px. Bottom: 8%. and Left: 9em.) |}
Rendered result
Cell content that is not indented or padded
style="padding-left: 2em;"
style="text-align:right; padding-right: 2em;"
style="padding-top: 2em;"
style="padding-bottom: 2em;"
style="padding: 3em 5%;"
(Top and Bottom: 3em. Left and Right: 5%)
style="padding: 3em 4em 5%;"
(Top: 3em. Left and Right: 4em. Bottom 5%)
style="padding: 3%;"
(Top, Right, Bottom, and Left: all 3%)
style="padding: 1em 20px 8% 9em;"
(Top: 1em. Right: 20px. Bottom: 8%. and Left: 9em.)
Pattern for arguments
The arguments to
style="padding: "
can be seen as being ordered by a
12-hour clock
, starting at
noon
and going
clockwise
, in the following sense: "top" is associated with noon (i.e. 12 o'clock, the top of a
clock
), "right" is 3 o'clock, "bottom" is 6 o'clock, and "left" is 9 o'clock. The arguments are ordered clockwise starting at noon: top → right → bottom → left (see this
[note 2]
footnote for an example with an explanation).
This same order is also used elsewhere, such as when specifying a
cell's borders
with
border-style:
.
The same
CSS used for tables
can be used in a cell's format specifier (enclosed in
|
...
|
) to put a border around each cell:
Wiki source
{| style="border-spacing: 2px; border: 1px solid darkgray;" ! style="width: 140px;" | Left ! style="width: 150px;" | Center ! style="width: 130px;" | Right |- style="text-align: center;" | style="border: 1px solid blue;"| [[File:StarIconBronze.png|120px|Bronze star icon]] | style="border: 1px solid #777777;"| [[File:StarIconGold.png|120px|Gold star icon]] | style="border: 1px solid #22AA55;"|
[[File:StarIconGreen.png|120px|Green star icon]] |- style="text-align: center;" |Bronze star || Gold star || Green star |}
Rendered result
Left
Center
Right
Bronze star
Gold star
Green star
Note that only the image cells have individual borders, not the text. The lower hex-colors (such as:
#616161
) are closer to black. Typically, all borders in a table would be one specific color.
Top, right, bottom, and left borders of a cell
To set the left, right, bottom, or top border of a single cell, one may use
style='border-style:'
which takes 4 arguments, each of which is either
solid
or
none
. These arguments are ordered according to the
pattern described here
. For instance,
style="border-style: solid none solid none;"
where the four parameters correspond respectively to the
'border-style: top right bottom left;'
borders of the cell. For reasons described after this example, there are many ways to change the following
code
that would
not
result in any changes to the table that is actually
displayed
.
Note, however, that in the following table, none of the central cell's (i.e.
Middle_Center
's) borders are removed despite the code
style="border-style: none none none none;"
:
This happens because the code
class="wikitable"
places a border (top, right, bottom, and left) around
every
cell in the table so that, for instance, there are actually
two
borders between the cells "Middle_Center" and "Middle_Right". So to remove the border between cells "Middle_Center" and "Middle_Right", it is necessary to remove both the right border of "Middle_Center"
and
the left border of "Middle_Right":
has the effect of removing all cell borders that would otherwise appear by default around every cell in the table. With this change, you must
insert
a
single
cell border between two adjacent cells rather than remove
two
cell borders.
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.
Wiki source
{| class=wikitable |- ! scope="col" style="width: 50px;" | Name ! scope="col" style="width: 250px;" | Effect ! scope="col" style="min-width: 225px; max-width: 300px;" | Games found in |- | Poké Ball || Regular Poké Ball || All versions |- | Great Ball || Better than a Poké Ball || All versions |}
Rendered result
Name
Effect
Games found in
Poké Ball
Regular Poké Ball
All versions
Great Ball
Better than a Poké Ball
All versions
To set column widths in a table without headers, specify the width in the first cell for each column.
Wiki source
{| class=wikitable |- | style="width: 100pt;" | This column is 100 points wide | style="width: 200pt;" | This column is 200 points wide | style="width: 300pt;" | This column is 300 points wide |- | blah || blih || bluh |}
Rendered result
This column is 100 points wide
This column is 200 points wide
This column is 300 points wide
blah
blih
bluh
You can also use percentages, such as to equalize the widths of a two-column table by setting one of them to
style="width: 50%;"
.
One application of setting the widths is aligning columns of consecutive tables. The following are separate tables, with columns set to 350px and 225px.
Warning: Setting specific pixel sizes is deprecated, as it interferes with the ability of the browser to adjust content to suit the browser window, device size, user-end font size limits, and other constraints. It is strongly preferred to use relative sizes, in percentage or
em
values.
Wiki source
{| class=wikitable |- ! scope=col style="width: 350px;" | Country ! scope=col style="width: 225px;" | Capital |- | Netherlands || Amsterdam |} {| class=wikitable |- ! scope=col style="width: 350px;" | Country ! scope=col style="width: 225px;" | Capital |- | France || Paris |}
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.
Without
nowrap
, as it appears in a browser:
Wiki source
{|class="wikitable sortable" |-
!
scope=col | Episode
!
scope=col | Date
!
scope=col | Summary |- |"The Journey Begins" |January 1, 2010 |[[
Lorem ipsum
]] dolor sit amet, [...]
|- |"When Episodes Attack" |January 8, 2010 |Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, [...] |- |"So Long" |January 15, 2010 |Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, [...] |}
Rendered result
Episode
Date
Summary
"The Journey Begins"
January 1, 2010
Lorem ipsum
dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
"When Episodes Attack"
January 8, 2010
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
"So Long"
January 15, 2010
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
With
nowrap
, on both the Episode and Date columns, as it appears in a browser:
Wiki source
{|class="wikitable sortable" |-
!
scope=col | Episode
!
scope=col | Date
!
scope=col | Summary |- |"The Journey Begins" |January 1, 2010 |[[
Lorem ipsum
]] dolor sit amet, [...]
|- |style="white-space: nowrap;"|"When Episodes Attack" |January 8, 2010 |Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, [...] |- |"So Long" |style="white-space: nowrap;"|January 15, 2010 |Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, [...] |}
Rendered result
Episode
Date
Summary
"The Journey Begins"
January 1, 2010
Lorem ipsum
dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
"When Episodes Attack"
January 8, 2010
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
"So Long"
January 15, 2010
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
You can add tooltips to columns by using the {{
H:title
}} template. Simply replace the column-title with
{{H:title|The tool tip|Column title}}
, which makes it appear like so:
Column title
.
Note: This example is not
accessible
, and should be avoided as much as possible. For example, nested tables (tables inside tables) should be separated into distinct tables when possible.
Here is a more advanced example, showing some more options available for making up tables.
Users can play with these settings in their own table to see what effect they have. Not all of these techniques may be appropriate in all cases; just because colored backgrounds can be added, for example, does not mean it is always a good idea. Try to keep the markup in tables relatively simple—remember, other people are going to be editing the article too! This example should give an idea of what is possible, though.
Wiki markup:
Text before centered table...
{| style="border: 1px solid black; border-spacing: 0; margin: 1em auto;"
|+ '''An example table'''
|-
!
style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px; background: #efefef;" | First header
!
colspan="2" style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px; background: #ffdead;" | Second header
|-
| style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px;" | Upper left
| style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px;" | Upper middle
| rowspan="2" style="border: 1px solid black; border-bottom: 3px solid grey; padding: 5px; vertical-align: top;" |
Right side
|-
| style="border: 1px solid black; border-bottom: 3px solid grey; padding: 5px;" | Lower left
| style="border: 1px solid black; border-bottom: 3px solid grey; padding: 5px;" | Lower middle
|-
| colspan="3" style="border: 1px solid black; text-align: center;" |
Text before a nested table...
{|
|+
''A table in a table''
|-
| style="text-align: center; width: 150px;" | [[
File:Wiki.png
]]
| style="text-align: center; width: 150px;" | [[
File:Wiki.png
]]
|-
| colspan="2" style="text-align:center; border-top: 1px solid red;
border-right: 1px solid red; border-bottom: 2px solid red;
border-left: 1px solid red;" |
Two Wikipedia logos
|}
...text after a nested table
|}
...text after centered table
A table can be used to wrap an image, so that the table can float towards the center of the page (such as using:
style="float: right;"
). However, the table margins, border and font-size must be precisely set to match a typical image display. The File-spec parameter
|thumb
(although auto-thumbnailing to user-preference width) forces a wide left-margin that squeezes the nearby text, so the parameter
|center
can be added to suppress the left-margin padding. However,
|center
sometimes shoves the caption to a 2nd line (under a centered box "[]"), so
|thumb
could be omitted and just hard-code the image size, adding a gray (#BBB) border. Using precise parameters to match other images, a floating-image table can be coded as follows:
The text inside the floating table is sized by
style="font-size: 86%;"
. That floating-image table floats a typical image box, but allows adjusting the left-hand margin of the image (see temple-example floating below).
This sample infobox shows how the floating image box aligns toward the center.
The dashed border around this table shows the implicit margins of Images using "thumb|right".
The caption text can be omitted, or remove the parameter "thumb|" so the caption is hidden until "mouse-over display". Unfortunately the parameter
|thumb
(used for displaying the caption) also controls the auto-thumbnailing to re-size images by user-preferences size. To have auto-thumbnail sizing while also concealing the caption, use
|frameless|right
instead of
|thumb
.
An image set with parameter
|left
has a wide right-side margin (opposite margin of parameter
|right
), so floating toward the left can be achieved with an image set as
|center
inside a table with style="float:left; margin:0.46em 0.2em;".
Recall that, outside an image-table, the parameter
|right
causes an image to align (either) above or below an infobox, but would not float alongside the infobox.
Note the
order of precedence
: first come infoboxes or images using
|right
, then come the floating tables, and lastly, any text wraps that can still fit. If the first word of the text is too long, no text will fit to complete the left-hand side, so beware creating a "ragged left margin" when not enough space remains for text to fit alongside floating tables.
If multiple single-image tables are stacked, they float to align across the page, depending on page width. The text squeezes to allow as many floating tables as can fit, as auto-aligned, then wrap whatever text can still fit at the left-hand side.
...by float: right
...images wrap...
All these...
That auto-aligning feature can be used to create a "floating gallery" of images: a set of 20 floating tables wrap (backward, right-to-left), as if each table were a word of text to wrap across and down the page. To wrap in the typical direction (wrapping left-to-right) define all those floating tables, instead, as left-side tables using the top parameter
style="float:left; margin:0.46em 0.2em;"
. Multiple floating images empower more flexible typesetting of images around the text.
{| class=wikitable
|-
!
Column 1 !! Column 2 !! Column 3
|-
| rowspan=2 | A
| colspan=2 style="text-align: center;" | B
|-
| C
| D
|-
| E
| rowspan=2 colspan=2 style="text-align: center;" | F
|-
| G
|-
| colspan=3 style="text-align: center;" | H
|}
Rendered result
Column 1
Column 2
Column 3
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
Note that using
rowspan=2
for cell
G
combined with
rowspan=3
for cell
F
to get another row below
G
and
F
won't work, because all (implicit) cells would be empty. Likewise complete columns are not displayed if all their cells are empty. Borders between non-empty and empty cells might be also not displayed (depending on the browser), use
to fill an empty cell with dummy content.
Below is the same table with the order of the declared rows and cells shown in parentheses. The uses of
rowspan
and
colspan
are also shown.
Column 1
(row 1 cell 1)
Column 2
(row 1 cell 2)
Column 3
(row 1 cell 3)
A
(row 2 cell 1)
rowspan=2
B
(row 2 cell 2)
colspan=2
C
(row 3 cell 1)
D
(row 3 cell 2)
E
(row 4 cell 1)
F
(row 4 cell 2)
rowspan=2 colspan=2
G
(row 5 cell 1)
H
(row 6 cell 1)
colspan=3
Note that although cell
C
is in column 2,
C
is the 1st cell declared in row 3, because column 1 is occupied by cell
A
, which was declared in row 2. Cell
G
is the only cell declared in row 5, because cell
F
occupies the other columns but was declared in row 4.
Unfortunately, the only way to align columns of numbers at the decimal point is to use two columns, with the first right-justified and the second left-justified.
If the column of numbers appears in a table with cell padding or cell borders, you can still align the decimal points without an unsightly gap in the middle, by forcing the border and padding between those two columns off.
Using two columns like this does have the disadvantage that searching the web page (either with a browser or a search engine) will usually not be able to find text that straddles the column boundary.
Also, if the table has cell
spacing
(and thus
border-collapse=separate
), meaning that cells have separate borders with a gap in between, that gap will still be visible.
A cruder way to align columns of numbers is to use a
figure space
, which is intended to be the width of a numeral, though is font-dependent in practice:
Wiki source
{| | 432.1 |- |
43.21 |- |
4.321 |}
Rendered result
432.1
43.21
4.321
More companions in this line are:
punctuation space
(
) to substitute a period or a comma,
−
instead of the easily available on the typewriter's keyboard
hyphen-dash
– this is the same width as the plus sign, also
figure dash
possibly the most useful for telephone numbers which you obviously will not find on Wikipedia.
When using
OpenType
fonts one may also alternate between
font-variant-numeric
:
tabular-nums
and
font-variant-numeric
:
proportional-nums
– this is especially visible in the kerning of
Arabic digit
⟨1⟩. In the standard browser sans-serif fonts ⟨1⟩ occupies the same width as other digits, ie. works as if
font-variant-numerals
:
tabular-nums
was turned on.
Some may find {{
}} useful for the alignment.
As a last resort, when using pre-formatted text, you can dispense with the table feature entirely and simply start the lines with a space, and put spaces to position the numbers—however, there should be a good reason to use pre-formatted text in an article:
{{
diagonal split header
|
HEADER-FOR-ROW-HEADERS
|
HEADER-FOR-COLUMN-HEADERS
}}
can be used to diagonally split a header cell, as in the top-left cell in the rendered result below:
[note 3]
Cell borders can be hidden by adding
border: none; background: none;
to style attributes of either table or cell (may not work in older browsers). Another use is to implement multi-column aligned tables.
There are several other
CSS
classes, besides the basic
class=wikitable
, documented
above
.
In the first line of table code, after the
{|
, instead of specifying a style directly, you can also specify a CSS class, which may be used to apply styles. The style for this class can be specified in various ways:
in the software itself, per skin (for example the class
sortable
)
collectively for all users of one wiki in
MediaWiki:Common.css
(for example, on this and some other projects there is or was the class wikitable, later moved to
shared.css
)
individually, but jointly for tables of the class concerned on all web pages, on the local computer of the user.
Instead of remembering table parameters, you just include an appropriate class after the
{|
. This helps keep table formatting consistent, and can allow a single change to the class to fix a problem or enhance the look of all the tables that are using it at once. For instance, this:
simply by replacing inline CSS for the table by
class=wikitable
. This is because the
wikitable
class in
MediaWiki:Common.css
contains a number of
table.wikitable
CSS style rules. These are all applied at once when you mark a table with the class. You can then add additional style rules if desired. These override the class's rules, allowing you to use the class style as a base and build up on it:
Notice that the table retains the gray background of the
wikitable
class, and the headers are still bold and centered. But now the text formatting has been overridden by the local
style=
statement; all of the text in the table has been made italic and 120% normal size, and the wikitable border has been replaced by the red dashed border.
Classes can also be used to collapse tables, so they are hidden by default. Use the class
mw-collapsible
to enable collapsing behaviour. Collapsible tables can be sortable, too, by also including the
sortable
class
(see
§ Sortable tables
)
. By default, a collapsible table begins expanded. To change this, add the additional class
mw-collapsed
. Alternatively, you can add
autocollapse
, instead of
mw-collapsed
, which will automatically collapse the table if two or more collapsible elements are present on the page.
Note
: Previous versions of this article recommended the
collapsible
class, but
mw-collapsible
is now preferred. It is a feature of the MediaWiki software, not a local customization, and can be used to make any element collapsible, not just tables.
mw-collapsible
also does not require a header row in the table, as
collapsible
did. Tables will show the
"[hide]" / "[show]"
controls in the first row of the table (whether or not it is a header row), unless a table caption is present.
(see
§ Tables with captions
)
Tables with captions will collapse to the table caption. The header will not be visible when collapsed. Use {{
nowrap
}} to keep the caption from being fit into a tiny vertical column when the table is collapsed.
Note:
class=mw-datatable
overrides background color for a row, but not the background color for individual cells.
class=mw-datatable
allows for row highlighting. This makes it easier to follow the data and info across a row, especially in wider tables.
mw-datatable
use is found with
this global search
within wikitext across all Wikimedia Foundation wikis. See bottom of search results for English language wiki use. See next section for one possible replacement.
tpl-blanktable – row highlighting via cursor hover. White background
[
edit
]
This replaces
class=mw-datatable
(see previous section) for now. It does not override existing background colors set for cells or rows.
It is possible to create cells that stretch over two or more columns. For this, one uses
|colspan=
n
|
content
. Similarly, one can create cells that stretch over two or more rows. This requires
|rowspan=
m
|
content
. In the table code, one must
leave out the cells that are covered by such a span
. The resulting column- and row-counting must fit.
To enable a
section link
's
anchor
(or a
map link
's anchor), referencing a specific row within a table, an
id="
section link anchor name
"
parameter needs to be added to the row start
|-
or
:
|- id="
section link anchor name
"
section link anchor name
">
Note that each
section link anchor name
must be different from every other in the page (this includes heading names), to create valid XHTML and allow proper linking.
Example of a map link to a row
When a country label, containing a link, is clicked on the map, the link coded, for example, as
[[#Table row 11|Slovenia]]
that references the anchor (within the table), coded as
|- id="Table row 11"
, makes the page scroll so selected row of the table is at the top of the browser view. Here, we use the template family
{{
Image label begin
}}
,
{{
Image label small
}}
, and
{{
Image label end
}}
to lay out such a table for us:
Click on a country name on the map to go to that name in the table
Regardless of whether wikitable format or HTML is used, the wikitext of the rows within a table, and sometimes even within a collection of tables, may have much in common, e.g.:
the basic code for a table row
code for color, alignment, and sorting mode
fixed texts such as units
special formats for sorting
In such a case, it can be useful to create a template that produces the syntax for a table row, with the data as parameters. This can have many advantages:
easily changing the order of columns, or removing a column
easily adding a new column if many elements of the new column are left blank (if the column is inserted and the existing fields are unnamed, use a named parameter for the new field to avoid adding blank parameter values to many template calls)
computing fields from other fields, e.g. population density from population and area
duplicating content and providing span tags with
display: none;
for the purpose of having one format for
sorting
and another for display
easy specification of a format for a whole column, such as color and alignment
The types of table syntax that MediaWiki supports are:
Wikicode
|
syntax
HTML (and XHTML)
Mixed XHTML and wikicode (
Do not use
)
All three are supported by MediaWiki and create (currently) valid HTML output, but the pipe syntax is the simplest. Mixed HTML and wikicode
|
syntax (i.e., unclosed
|
and
|-
tags) don't necessarily remain browser-supported in the future, especially on mobile devices.
Pipe syntax in terms of the HTML produced
[
edit
]
The pipe syntax, developed by
Magnus Manske
, substitutes pipes (
|
) and other symbols for HTML. There is an
online script
, which converts HTML tables to pipe-syntax tables.
The pipes must start at the beginning of a new line, except when separating parameters from content or when using
||
to separate cells on a single line. The parameters are optional.
, but with different style and
semantic meaning
. A
!
character is used instead of the opening
|
, and
!!
can be used like
||
, to enter multiple headers on the same line. Parameters still use "|", though. Example:
{{
Table cell templates
}} provide a set of templates to configure text and color in cells in a standard way, producing stock output such as "Yes", "No", and "n/a", on coloured backgrounds.
Sometimes it is desirable (such as in a table predominantly made of numbers) to rotate text such that it proceeds from top to bottom or bottom to top instead of from left to right or right to left. Formerly, browser support for this type of styling as a component of HTML or CSS was sporadic (Internet Explorer was one of the few browsers that supports this in cascading stylesheets, albeit in a non-standard way).
Enclose the text of each heading in a {{
vertical header
}} template. For example:
! {{vertical header|Date/Page}}
If the text includes an equals sign then replace it with
{{=}}
.
An alternative solution that works in most if not all browsers is to use images in place of the text. For instance, the following table uses SVG images instead of text to produce the rotated column headers:
Rotated column headers using images
05/08
4266
7828
7282
1105
224
161
916
506
231
04/08
4127
6190
6487
1139
241
205
1165
478
301
Normally, one problem with this approach is that readers are directed to different pages when they click on the images. To eliminate this problem—or to direct readers to a
different
page—you can use the
|link=
parameter of the
File:
specification. A column header can be coded as follows:
! [[File:wpvg vg project.svg |alt=VG: Project |link='''Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games''']]
By setting the link to an empty string (e.g.
[[File:wpvg hd date page.svg |link=]]
), no navigation occurs when visitors click on an image. Note that it might also be a good idea to color the image text blue if you are using the images as links. Also, SVG is the preferred image format in this case because it can be re-scaled to any size while producing fewer artifacts.
A more serious potential problem is that the "rotated text" is not text that can be used by
screen readers
and other technologies for visually disabled users. So those users wouldn't be able to "read" the column headers. Also, automated search engine
Web crawlers
would not be able to read it either. This is solved by always using the
|alt=
parameter in the
File:
specification of each image to provide the same text as in the rotated image; see
|alt=VG: Project
in the example above.
This section is still recommending deprecated fixed-pixel sizes for images, and should be updated with relative sizes in
em
units.
A wikitable can be used to display side-by-side images, in the manner similar to that of an image gallery (formatted by
...
), but with larger images and less vacant area around photos.
A simple, framed gallery can be formatted using
class="wikitable"
to generate the minimal thin lines around images within the table:
{| class="wikitable" |- |
[[
File:Worms 01.jpg
|
130px
]] |
[[
File:Worms Wappen 2005-05-27.jpg
|
125px
]] |
[[
File:Liberty-statue-with-manhattan.jpg
|
125px
]] |
[[
File:New-York-Jan2005.jpg
|
125px
]] |- |
Nibelungen Bridge to Worms |
Worms and its sister cities |
Statue of Liberty |
New York City |}
Nibelungen Bridge to Worms
Worms and its sister cities
Statue of Liberty
New York City
An advantage of wikitable image galleries, compared to
formatting, is the ability to "square" each image when similar heights are needed, so consider putting two-number image sizes (such as
199x95px
), where the second number limits height:
{| class="wikitable" |
[[
File:Worms 01.jpg
|
199x95px
]] |
[[
File:Worms Wappen 2005-05-27.jpg
|
199x95px
]] |
[[
File:Liberty-statue-with-manhattan.jpg
|
199x95px
]] |
[[
File:New-York-Jan2005.jpg
|
100x95px
]]
|- |
Nibelungen Bridge to Worms |
Worms and its sister cities |
Statue of Liberty |
New York City |}
Note the three images sized
199x95px
appear identical height, of
95px
(the fourth image purposely smaller). The "95px" forces height, while
199x
fits the various widths (it could even be
999x
):
Nibelungen Bridge to Worms
Worms and its sister cities
Statue of Liberty
New York City
Therefore, the use of size
199x95px
(or
999x95px
, or whatever) produces the auto-height-sizing beyond the
tag, and with the option to set taller thumbnails (
199x105px
), or even to have some images purposely smaller than other images of
95px
height. A very short height (e.g.
70px
) allows many more images across the table:
{| class="wikitable" |- |
[[
File:Worms 01.jpg
|
199x70px
]] |
[[
File:Gold star on blue.gif
|
199x70px
]] |
[[
File:Worms Wappen 2005-05-27.jpg
|
199x70px
]] |
[[
File:Gold star on deep red.gif
|
199x70px
]] |
[[
File:Liberty-statue-with-manhattan.jpg
|
199x70px
]] |
[[
File:Gold star on blue.gif
|
199x70px
]] |
[[
File:New-York-Jan2005.jpg
|
199x70px
]]
|- |}
The above wikitable-coding produces the result below, of 7 columns:
Once images have been placed in a wikitable, control of formatting can be adjusted when more images are added.
Images within a wikitable can be shifted by inserting non-breaking spaces (
) before or after the image code (e.g.,
[[Image:...]]
)
. However, auto-centering simply requires use of the
|center
parameter (see
WP:Extended image syntax#Location
).
In the example below, note how Col2 uses
|center
, but Col3 uses
:
{| class="wikitable" |- |[[File:Domtoren vanaf Brigittenstraat.jpg|299x125px]] |[[File:Utrecht 003.jpg|299x125px|
center
]] |
[[File:Uitzicht--Domtoren.jpg|299x125px]] |- |Dom tower from Brigittenstraat |Cloister garth of the Utrecht Dom Church |
View from bell tower
|}
The above coding generates the table below: note the middle garden image is centered (but not the left image), and the right image has 2 spaces before "View...", to give an approximation of centering:
Dom tower from Brigittenstraat
Cloister garth of the Utrecht Dom Church
View from bell tower
Also note that the tag
...
made a smaller-text-size caption. Fonts also can be sized by percent (
style="font-size: 87%;"
), where the exact percent-size as displayed depends on the various sizes allowed for a particular font; the browser will approximate to the nearest possible size.
| style="font-size: 87%;" | View from bell tower
The column attribute, above, uses
style=
to set the font size for the caption, following the second pipe symbol.
A
font-size: 65%;
is excessively small, while
font-size: 87%;
is a mid-size font, slightly larger than that produced by the tag
.
While tables should not normally be indented, when their surrounding paragraphs are also indented, you can indent tables using one or more colons ("
:
", the normal
indent code
) at the beginning of a line, the same way you'd indent any other wiki content.
Note that indentation applied to only the
first line
of the table definition (the line that begins with "
{|
") is sufficient to indent the entire table. Do not attempt to use colons for indentation anywhere within the rest of the table code (not even at the beginning of a line), as that will prevent the MediaWiki software from correctly reading the code for the table.
Note:
In
editing preferences
check the box: "enable the editing toolbar. This is sometimes called the '2010 wikitext editor'."
Make sure the countries, states, provinces, or cities, etc. are in the first column. The regular expression wraps all the text in the first cell of each row with the
{{
flaglist
}}
template.
{{
flaglist
|Country name}}
So do this before adding any styling to the first column.
Click on the wikitext source editing link. Click on "Advanced" in the editing toolbar. Then click on the search and replace icon on the right. Put a check in the box called "Treat search string as a regular expression." Fill in the "Search for" box with:
(
\
|-.*
\
n
\
|
\
s
*)(
[^\|\n]
*)
Fill in the "replace with" box with:
$1{{flaglist|$2}}
Then click "Replace all". Nearly all countries, states, etc. will be linked and will have flags.
For the red links create redirects as necessary. For example, if countries, then to the correct
country data templates
. Save this initial table permanently in a user sandbox without overwriting it. This is so that the redirects are kept due to being in use on that sandbox page. Otherwise, admins will delete unused redirects, and you will have to do this tedious, time-consuming redirect task every time you fully update the table. In the edit summary of such redirects, add something like this: "Please do not delete this redirect. It is sometimes used in updates of
[[NAME OF ARTICLE WITH TABLE]]
."
Adding links to specialized country, state, or territory articles
[
edit
]
Once you have a table with {{
flaglist
}} or other flag template it is easy to convert the links to specialized links. So instead of
Oklahoma
you would have
Incarceration in Oklahoma
, or if that article does not exist, then
Crime in Oklahoma
. This particular template use also left aligns the text of that column.
Use a global find-and-replace as previously described, but without regular expressions. Replace:
{{flaglist
with
{{flagg|us*eft|pref=Incarceration in|pref2=Crime in
The {{
flagg
}} template looks for the articles. If it finds one of the two choices it adds the link and an asterisk after the state, country, territory, or other
subnational area
name. If it does not find either article, it just adds the standard link.
Substitute your preferred topics in the
pref=
and
pref2=
spots.
This particular use of {{
flagg
}} parameters is
expensive
and can only be used on a few hundred links per article. Every time the article is saved it occurs, even for
null edits
. So only one big country table per article. Other country tables in the same article should use standard links.
Note:
In
editing preferences
check the box: "enable the editing toolbar. This is sometimes called the '2010 wikitext editor'."
List of countries by intentional homicide rate
has a main table with a region column and a subregion column. Here below is a fast way to link the regions and subregions in those columns. For example, after updating the whole table from the source. See example in
this sandbox
.
The following assumes the syntax is a whole table row in one source line starting with a pipe and with double pipe between cells.
Click on the wikitext source editing link. Click on "Advanced" in the editing toolbar. Then click on the search and replace icon on the right. Put a check in the box called "Treat search string as a regular expression." Fill in the "Search for" box with:
^(
\
|(.*?
\
|
\
|)
{
m
}
*)(.*?)(
*
\
|
\
||
*
\
n
)
Change "m" to the number of the column minus 1. 2nd column from the left would be "1". 3rd column from the left would be "2". The row number column created by
Template:Static row numbers
is not counted in these calculations. Fill in the "replace with" box with:
$1[[$3]]$4
Then click "Replace all". The "m" number may be different if a table uses rowspan or colspan.
If you then want to left align the region and subregion links do a simple find and replace. Replace the left brackets:
[[
with:
style=text-align:left|[[
Aligning text in header cells versus other cells
[
edit
]
If there is no global text alignment set in the top line of the table wikitext, then all text is left aligned, except for header cells which are default center aligned.
Only in tables with
class=wikitable
does the header cell text not follow the global text alignment set in the top line of the table wikitext.
When using
class=wikitable
header text now stays centered in both desktop and mobile view unless specifically changed per header cell. This is true wherever the header row is located (top, bottom, middle). Global text alignment for non-header cells is done by putting
style=text-align:VALUE
in the top line of the table wikitext. See example in the next section.
Aligning the data in data columns to the right
[
edit
]
Both tables below use
class=wikitable
The table to the right also aligns the text and data in all cells (except header cells) to the right.
Basic table
Header
Header
Header
Text
data 12
data 12
Text
data 123
data 123
Text
data 1234
data 1234
style=text-align:right
Header
Header
Header
Text
data 12
data 12
Text
data 123
data 123
Text
data 1234
data 1234
If most columns consist of data cells, then you might choose to align the data to the right. It is easy.
Just add
style=text-align:right
to the top line of the wikitext for the table:
Aligning the text in the first column to the left
[
edit
]
This can be done in the wikitext source editor. In
editing preferences
check the box labeled: "enable the editing toolbar. This is sometimes called the '2010 wikitext editor'."
In the table section click "edit source" (wikitext editing). Click on "Advanced" in the editing toolbar. Then click on the "search and replace" icon on the right. In the popup form check the box for "Treat search string as a regular expression".
Fill in the "Search for" box with
(\|-\n\|)
Fill in the "replace with" box with
$1style=text-align:left|
Then click "Replace all". All the text in the first column will be aligned to the left of their cells.
If for some reason those cells are header cells, then fill in the "Search for" box with
(\|-\n\!)
Note the exclamation point for a header cell. Fill in the "replace with" box with
$1style=text-align:left|
Then click "Replace all".
Converting spreadsheets and database tables to wikitable format
[
edit
]
You can save spreadsheets as
.csv
and use the
CSV to Wikitable
converter. Another version is
here
. It has a useful auto-detect function for the delimiter.
Converting rows to columns and columns to rows
[
edit
]
Sometimes there is a need to transpose columns and rows (move rows to columns, and columns to rows). For simple tables, this can be done via the "transpose rows and columns" function of
Copy & Paste Excel-to-Wiki
, or via the "transpose" feature of a third-party spreadsheet program such as
Microsoft Excel
, the free web-based
Google Sheets
, or the free downloadable software
LibreOffice Calc
.
To transpose the table with a third-party spreadsheet program, copy the published table on the Wikipedia page and paste it into a new blank document in your spreadsheet program. While the pasted cells are still selected in the spreadsheet, copy them again by right-clicking and choosing "Copy" from the context menu. Open a new blank spreadsheet spreadsheet, click in the upper-left cell, right click on it, and choose "Paste Special". In Microsoft Excel, check the "Transpose" box at the bottom of the dialogue and hit Okay. In Google Sheets, choose "Transposed" from the sub-menu. in LibreOffice Calc, choose "Transpose" from the sub-menu. Perform any required editing of the transposed table, and copy the new table directly from the spreadsheet program into visual editor, or into one of the wikitable converters previously mentioned, such as
toolforge:excel2wiki
or
tab2wiki
.
For more complicated operations, such as consolidating multiple rows with the same header into a single column, you can use the "pivot table" feature of an external spreadsheet program. For example; the data for the overdose rates table by state for
United States drug overdose death rates and totals over time
comes from a
csv file
and is converted to wikitable format via one of the previously mentioned csv converters, but the year headers in the left table below need to become the column headers in the right table (truncated).
Year
State
Rate
2019
AL
16.3
2019
AK
17.8
2019
AZ
26.8
2019
AR
13.5
2019
CA
15
2019
CO
18
2019
CT
34.7
2019
DE
48
2019
FL
25.5
2019
GA
13.1
2019
HI
15.9
2019
ID
15.1
2019
IL
21.9
2019
IN
26.6
2019
IA
11.5
2019
KS
14.3
2019
KY
32.5
2019
LA
28.3
2019
ME
29.9
2019
MD
38.2
2019
MA
32.1
2019
MI
24.4
2019
MN
14.2
2019
MS
13.6
2019
MO
26.9
2019
MT
14.1
2019
NE
8.7
2019
NV
20.1
2019
NH
32
2019
NJ
31.7
2019
NM
30.2
2019
NY
18.2
2019
NC
22.3
2019
ND
11.4
2019
OH
38.3
2019
OK
16.7
2019
OR
14
2019
PA
35.6
2019
RI
29.5
2019
SC
22.7
2019
SD
10.5
2019
TN
31.2
2019
TX
10.8
2019
UT
18.9
2019
VT
23.8
2019
VA
18.3
2019
WA
15.8
2019
WV
52.8
2019
WI
21.1
2019
WY
14.1
2018
AL
16.6
2018
AK
14.6
2018
AZ
23.8
2018
AR
15.7
2018
CA
12.8
2018
CO
16.8
2018
CT
30.7
2018
DE
43.8
2018
FL
22.8
2018
GA
13.2
2018
HI
14.3
2018
ID
14.6
2018
IL
21.3
2018
IN
25.6
2018
IA
9.6
2018
KS
12.4
2018
KY
30.9
2018
LA
25.4
2018
ME
27.9
2018
MD
37.2
2018
MA
32.8
2018
MI
26.6
2018
MN
11.5
2018
MS
10.8
2018
MO
27.5
2018
MT
12.2
2018
NE
7.4
2018
NV
21.2
2018
NH
35.8
2018
NJ
33.1
2018
NM
26.7
2018
NY
18.4
2018
NC
22.4
2018
ND
10.2
2018
OH
35.9
2018
OK
18.4
2018
OR
12.6
2018
PA
36.1
2018
RI
30.1
2018
SC
22.6
2018
SD
6.9
2018
TN
27.5
2018
TX
10.4
2018
UT
21.2
2018
VT
26.6
2018
VA
17.1
2018
WA
14.8
2018
WV
51.5
2018
WI
19.2
2018
WY
11.1
2017
AL
18
2017
AK
20.2
2017
AZ
22.2
2017
AR
15.5
2017
CA
11.7
2017
CO
17.6
2017
CT
30.9
2017
DE
37
2017
FL
25.1
2017
GA
14.7
2017
HI
13.8
2017
ID
14.4
2017
IL
21.6
2017
IN
29.4
2017
IA
11.5
2017
KS
11.8
2017
KY
37.2
2017
LA
24.5
2017
ME
34.4
2017
MD
36.3
2017
MA
31.8
2017
MI
27.8
2017
MN
13.3
2017
MS
12.2
2017
MO
23.4
2017
MT
11.7
2017
NE
8.1
2017
NV
21.6
2017
NH
37
2017
NJ
30
2017
NM
24.8
2017
NY
19.4
2017
NC
24.1
2017
ND
9.2
2017
OH
46.3
2017
OK
20.1
2017
OR
12.4
2017
PA
44.3
2017
RI
31
2017
SC
20.5
2017
SD
8.5
2017
TN
26.6
2017
TX
10.5
2017
UT
22.3
2017
VT
23.2
2017
VA
17.9
2017
WA
15.2
2017
WV
57.8
2017
WI
21.2
2017
WY
12.2
State
2017
2018
2019
AL
18
16.6
16.3
AK
20.2
14.6
17.8
AZ
22.2
23.8
26.8
To re-arrange the table using pivot tables, copy and paste the published Wikitable into a spreadsheet program such as freeware
LibreOffice Calc
.
In LibreOffice Calc, first make sure the headers are in the top row. Then select a data cell. Then click on the "
Pivot Table
" command from the
Insert menu.
Click OK in the popup box. In the next dialog box drag "
Year
" to the "
Column Fields
" box, and drag "
State
" to the "
Row Fields
" box. Drag "
Rate
" to the "
Data Fields
" box. Click OK. The table will convert to the new format with the years as column headers. It is easier to do than to describe. For help see:
LibreOffice: Pivot Tables
and
LibreOffice Help: Pivot Table
.
If further editing is required, first copy and paste that table to a new Calc spreadsheet, to prevent complications with the existing interactive pivot table. When done editing, copy the new table (if small) directly from the Calc page into visual editor, or into one of the wikitable converters previously mentioned, such as
Copy & Paste Excel-to-Wiki
or
tab2wiki
. Then use VE to delete the summation column and row.
List of countries by intentional homicide rate
has a country table that uses a source with multiple years. But the table only shows data for the latest available year for each country. Some more complex transposing needs to be done with the source spreadsheet. To do it quickly see these threads:
Picking selected dates from massive .csv files
[
edit
]
COVID-19 pandemic deaths
has a few tables by year of cumulative deaths by country on the first of each month. The source is a massive WHO (
World Health Organization
)
csv file
.
Download
here
. You could convert it to a massive wikitable as described elsewhere, and delete the hundreds of unwanted date columns over several hours.
Or you could open the csv file in a spreadsheet such as freeware
LibreOffice Calc
. Then delete all columns except for "Country", "Date reported", and "Cumulative deaths" columns (select, right-click column head, delete). Save as .ods file. Then use the autofilter function to select just the dates of interest from a checklist. Click anywhere in the table. Then:
Data menu > AutoFilter.
Dropdown menus will show up on all column heads. In the "Date reported" dropdown menu clear the "All" box by clicking it. This unchecks all the dates. Then check the dates you want. In this case all the first of the month dates for the desired year. Click OK. Save the file. See
video
. See: "
Applying AutoFilter
" in Calc help.
In order to completely remove all the unwanted data you must copy and paste that table to a new Calc
ods file
. A simple paste works (edit menu > paste). This greatly reduces the file size. See: "
Only Copy Visible Cells
" in Calc help.
On this smaller file use the "Pivot Table" method described in the previous section to put the dates as column heads. Select a data cell. Then click on the "
Pivot Table
" command from the
Insert menu.
Click OK in the popup box. In the next dialog box drag "
Date reported
" to the "
Column Fields
" box, and drag "
Country
" to the "
Row Fields
" box. Drag "
Cumulative deaths
" to the "
Data Fields
" box. Click OK. Copy and paste that table to a new Calc ods file to prevent Pivot complications, and to do further editing.
This method can be used for creating or updating many Wikipedia country tables that need only the latest data, or selected dates, from large multi-year data file sources. Just scrolling back and forth through one huge data file could take hours otherwise.
See
Phab: T108245
: "Fully support basic table editing in the visual editor". See the list of tasks. Finished tasks are
struck
. It can be difficult to figure out from the technical language there what exactly has been improved, or what features have been added. Please add explanatory info below.
In VE click on a column or row header. Then click on the arrow. From the popup menu click on "Move" or "Delete". In freeware
LibreOffice Calc
select the column or row. Then click and hold the
Alt key
. Then drag the column or row where you want it. You can drag from anywhere in the row or column except for the row number or column letter.
Launch the Visual Editor. In the column you are copying click the header cell or whatever top cell you want. Then shift-click a cell farther down or at the end of the column. This will select the column down to that cell. Then click "copy" from the edit menu of your browser. In some browsers you can do this from the popup context menu. Then click any blank spot on the page to deselect the column.
Go to the column you want to replace or fill in (in this table or another one). Be sure visual editor has been launched. If you are copying the whole column including the header cell select just the header cell for that column by clicking on it. Then click "paste" from the edit menu of your browser. You can paste into a blank column the same way. Just select the header cell. Then from your browser: edit menu > paste.
Or you can select part of a column and paste into it. For example; if you don't want to replace the header cell.
All of the above will sometimes work when copying to or from a column in a spreadsheet (such as freeware
LibreOffice Calc
). If there is a problem, then paste that spreadsheet column into
tab2wiki
first, and copy the wikitext.
After combining the columns into one table, you may notice that VE created a mishmash of compressed and uncompressed wikitext. If this is a problem, it can be fixed by pasting the table into
tab2wiki
.
Note:
The Visual Editor will copy templates (as in a column of country/state/province names with flag templates), but it will not copy inline styling such as styling used to left align those names. That can be added back all at once in any text editor. For example; if the flag template is the only template in the table, then replace
{{
with
style=text-align:left|{{
Click on the top corner cell of the area you want to select. Then shift-click on the opposite top corner cell in the same row. Then go straight down and shift-click on the bottom corner cell on the same side of the area you want to select. You will now have a rectangle or square selected of the table.
Click on "copy" or "cut" as needed from the edit menu of your browser. "Delete" will not work for multiple rows and columns.
Click on the top left corner cell of the area you want to paste into in a table. Then click "paste" from the edit menu of your browser. It can take from a few seconds to up to a minute for very large areas. You might want to do this work in a sandbox first. Then save and edit further before putting anything in an article.
"Cut" will empty the selected cells. It does not delete them. Once empty though it is very easy to delete all the empty cells, rows, and columns in the source editor. Switch over to it by clicking the arrow at the top right of the editing window.
It may be even faster to use the Visual Editor to copy the parts you want from the table into a new blank table.
Copy table from web page to Visual Editor
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]
It is now possible to copy and paste some tables from a web page directly into the
Visual Editor
(VE). Not all tables work. Use an empty sandbox to do this most quickly. Save it, and edit further before pasting it into an article.
Select the table on the web page. Then click "copy" from the edit menu of your browser. In some browsers you can do this from the popup context menu. Launch visual editor on any page. Then paste the table into the page.
If that does not work, click on the insert menu, and then "table". It usually has the first header in the table selected. Then click on "paste" from the edit menu of your browser. It may take awhile for the table to show up. It can take 3 seconds, or up to a minute for very large tables.
Copy table from web to Excel2Wiki to wikitext editor to VE
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For copying web page tables that can't be copied directly into the Visual Editor (as described in the previous section): Try copying the table into
Excel2Wiki
,
or
tab2wiki
. Click "convert". Copy and paste the table wikitext into the wikitext editor. Save. Do further editing in VE.
Copy list (not in table) to Excel2Wiki to wikitext editor to VE
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]
Paste any list (text and/or numbers) into
Excel2Wiki
.
Click "convert". Copy and paste the table wikitext into the wikitext editor. Save. Do further editing in VE. For example; add more columns, or copy the column and paste it into other tables. Before pasting a list into Excel2Wiki you may want to remove a block of text. Some text editors can do this when text is set to a
fixed-width font
such as
Courier New
. For example; freeware
NoteTab Light
: Modify menu > Block > Cut. Fill in popup form with starting column, block width, block rows. Click OK and that rectangle of text is removed. This saves a lot of time.
Sort alphabetically or numerically with free spreadsheet and VE
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]
Note:
For more info see
Help:Sorting
. See the section on putting a table in initial alphabetical order.
Many things can be done in spreadsheet programs that can not be done in the visual editor. Select and copy a table right off of a page (do not go into the wikitext or the HTML). Paste the table into a spreadsheet program such as freeware
LibreOffice Calc
(see free
guide
), or another spreadsheet program. See
List of spreadsheet software
.
In Calc click on any cell in the column you want sorted, and then click on one of the sort options in the data menu at the top of the Calc window. Click on "ascending" or "descending" to sort alphabetically or numerically depending on the column contents. Click on "sort" for more options.
To move the header row(s) back up to the top: Select the entire row(s). To select the entire row(s) click on the Calc numbered columns located on the far left of any sheet. Press and hold ALT key. Left click and hold any cell within that section (row numbers won't work). Using the mouse drag and drop the source row(s) to its destination. Release the mouse button.
To avoid this problem when doing an alphabetical sort, select all of the table except the header rows. To do so with multiple columns click the top left non-column-header cell, and then shift-click the bottom right cell. When you click on "ascending" or "descending" in the data menu the table will be sorted alphabetically. That is the default.
Paste that sorted table (or just the selected columns of interest) into a new table in Visual Editor. Copy directly from the spreadsheet, and then paste directly into a new Visual Editor table where the first header cell has been selected. It may take up to a minute. If there is a problem, then paste into
tab2wiki
first, and copy the wikitext.
Upload PDF to free online PDF-to-Excel site. For example;
here
. Download the Excel file. Open it in freeware
LibreOffice Calc
or another spreadsheet program. If you just want one table from a long Excel page, you can select that table from the Calc page. Then copy the table to a new page in Calc.
Edit and move columns and rows in Calc. To drag a column first select it by clicking its header number. Then press and hold the ALT key. Then click a data cell, and drag the column to a new location. Or right click and delete the selected column (no need for ALT key). Rows are similarly moved (with the ALT key pressed), or deleted. Sort as described in the previous section.
Copy the table to a wiki sandbox. In Calc select the table. Copy directly from it, and then paste into a new Visual Editor table where the first header cell has been selected. It may take up to a minute. If there is a problem, then paste into
tab2wiki
first, and copy the wikitext.
Add commas or periods to separate every third digit in numbers
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To replace spaces with commas or periods, paste the list, row, or column into a text editor (
Notepad
for example). Use replace (from edit menu in Notepad). See previous sections to learn how to copy that corrected list into a table.
If you are already in a spreadsheet use find-and-replace after selecting the column or row in question.
If there is no separator between every third digit, then paste the list, row, or column into a spreadsheet (LibreOffice Calc for example). To do that click the first column head in the blank spreadsheet. This will select that column. Then click paste from the edit menu of Calc. From the popup box click "fixed width". Uncheck everything else. Click OK. This will paste it into the first column. In Calc save it in the default .ods format. This will allow the next step.
If there are multiple columns select the top left data cell (not the header cell or this will not work). Then Shift-click on the bottom right data cell. This will select all the data cells. Don't select any text or date cells. Or deselect just the text or date cells by ctrl-click.
Click "
number format
" from the
format menu
. Then click "thousands separator" from the submenu. This will add commas or periods depending on the default language you have selected in Calc for the locale setting. (tools menu > options > language settings > languages > formats > locale settings). For example; with English you might select USA, UK, South Africa, or one of the many other English speaking countries that are listed for English. Copy that column to a Wikipedia table via VE.
Round off numbers (usually to zero decimal places)
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Most of the time, especially with dollars and cents, the data is more useful to readers when rounded off to no decimal places.
It is easy to do in a spreadsheet. For example; in LibreOffice Calc select the column by clicking the very top of its column. Then go to the Format menu > Cells. A popup will show up. Click the "Number" category. Choose the number of decimal places (zero if you don't want any decimal points). You can also choose from the example list.
That popup page is also where you choose a thousands separator or not. Choosing from the example list will also check or uncheck that box. When done copy that table or column to a Wikipedia table via VE. If there is a problem, then paste into
tab2wiki
first, and copy the wikitext.
Launch VE. In a table select a column, or part of a column of numbers. To do so click the top cell you want. Then shift-click a cell farther down or at the end of the column. This will select the column down to that cell. If this is not possible, you may need to first comment out, or temporarily delete some table templates such as those for {{
Static row numbers
}}. Use a sandbox.
Upon selection in VE you will immediately see a popup box with a sum total of the selected cells, and an average.
^
border: none;
avoids an unsightly empty column in tables narrower than the browser window on Android Chrome.
^
In
style="padding: 3em 4em 5%;"
, the value
4em
is used for both the "left" padding and the "right" padding, so the order going clockwise is: top (3em) → right [and hence also left] (4em) → bottom (5%); there is no "→ left" in this case because the "left" padding has already been defined. In
style="padding: 3em 5%;"
, the value
3em
is used for both the "top" and "bottom" padding while the value
5%
is used for both the "left" and "right" padding, so the order going clockwise is: top [and hence also bottom] (3em) → right [and hence also left] (5%); there is no "→ bottom" nor is there "→ left" in this case because the "bottom" and "left" padding have already been defined. The same reasoning also applies to
style="padding: 1em 20px 8% 9em;"
, and
style="padding: 3%;"
.
or
(Insert a table) on the
edit toolbar
. In the Vector toolbar the table icon is in the "Advanced" menu. If "Insert a table" is not on the toolbar follow
these directions
to add it.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Mozambique
Editing Wikitext/Tables
at Wikibooks