Table Formatting Rules

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Summary

Basic Rules for Formatting Tables in FlexWiki

See_also

FormattingRules, TableFormattingNewParser

Table Formatting Features

Basic tables are done like this:

 ||Region||Sales||
 ||East||$100||
 ||West||$500||

which appears like this:

Region	Sales
East	$100
West	$500

Rich table formatting allows control over the following advanced table formatting features:

• Table-level formatting
• Center
• Float left or right
• Border (or no border)
• Width (percentage)
• Cell-level formatting
• Content alignment (left, right, center)
• Row and column spans
• Cell highlighting
• Breaking (allowed or not)
• Colored cell backgrounds
• Width (percentage)

These rich formatting options are specified using a table formatting expression immediately after the || characters for a cell. The table formatting expression is delimited by { and } (curly-brace characters). Formatting that applies to the whole table must appear prior to the first cell (though it can be duplicated and will be ignored in the other cells).

Table Formatting Rules and Examples

Center - T^

A table can be centered using the table formatting expression T^. For example,

 ||{T^}Region||Sales||
 ||East||$100||
 ||West||$500||

which appears like this:

Region	Sales
East	$100
West	$500

Floating Tables - T[ and T]

A table can be configured to float on the left or right with surrounding content wrapped around. This is done with T[ and T]. For example,

 ||{T[}Region||Sales||
 ||East||$100||
 ||West||$500||

which appears like this:

Region	Sales
East	$100
West	$500

Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table.

Or, floating on the right:

 ||{T]}Region||Sales||
 ||East||$100||
 ||West||$500||

which appears like this:

Region	Sales
East	$100
West	$500

Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table. Notice that this text wraps around the table.

Question

Once you're done writing text that's relevant to the table, is there a way you can force a "break" so that you're next paragraph is below the table? I've tried various things to try and get my next paragraph to be "not wrapped" but as soon as you increase or decrease your window size, screen resolution, or whatever, so that more or less text fits beside the table, it always ends up that my next paragraph is not where I wanted it to be.

Border = T-

By default, a table is given a border. You can hide the border using T-. For example:

 ||{T-}Region||Sales||
 ||East||$100||
 ||West||$500||

which appears like this:

Region	Sales
East	$100
West	$500

Question

Why is there still a space between cells even when I asked for no borders ? This makes slicing a picture into bits and putting them into a table for reconstituting the whole picture in a table (but with some cells/part of the picture being links) absolutely impossible.

Width

Question

Does this still work? I'm using version 1.8.1613.0 and it throws an error.

Answer

Works for me in 1.8.0.1694 -- JimmySieben

You can specify the preferred width of the table (as a percentage of the whole display area for the topic) using TWxx, where xx is the percentage. For example,

 ||{TW25}One Quarter||
 ||This is the story of a man named bill.  This is the story ....||

produces:

One Quarter

This is the story of a man named bill. This is the story of a man named bill. This is the story of a man named bill. This is the story of a man named bill.

whereas:

 ||{TW90}Ninety Percent||
 ||This is the story of a man named bill.  This is the story ....||

produces:

Ninety Percent

This is the story of a man named bill. This is the story of a man named bill. This is the story of a man named bill. This is the story of a man named bill.

Cell Formatting Features

Row and column spans - Cnnn and Rnnn

Sometimes you want a cell to span more than one column or row. This can be achieved by specifying the Cnnn and Rnnn options.

For example:

 ||{R2}Region||{C2}Sales||
 ||Q1||Q2||
 ||East||$100||$800||
 ||West||$500||$9000||

which causes the Sales cell to span two columns and the Region cell to span two rows:

Region	Sales
	Q1	Q2
East	$100	$800
West	$500	$9000

Cell content alignment - [ ^ ]

You can control the alignment in a cell by using [ (left), ] (right) and ^ (center). Note the position of the word Sales in each of the following three examples:

First row:

 ||{[C2}Sales||

Sales
Q1	Q2
$100	$800
$500	$9000

First row:

 ||{^C2}Sales||

Sales
Q1	Q2
$100	$800
$500	$9000

First row:

 ||{]C2}Sales||

Sales
Q1	Q2
$100	$800
$500	$9000

Question

Is VALIGN exposed in any way?

Cell highlighting - !

By including the '!' table formatting rule, you can cause cells to be highlighted. This is useful, for example, in header rows and for other cells that you want to highlight:

 ||{^!C2}Sales||
 ||Q1||Q2||
 ||$100||$800||
 ||$500||{!}$9000||

produces:

Sales
Q1	Q2
$100	$800
$500	$9000

Width

You can specify the preferred width of the column (as a percentage of the width of the whole table) using Wxx, where xx is the percentage. For example,

 ||{W75}Q1||Q2||Q3||Q4||
 ||$100||$800||$500||$900||
 ||$500||$9000||$500||$900||

produces:

Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
$100	$800	$500	$900
$500	$9000	$500	$900

Breaking - +

By default, content will be word wrapped in table cell. You can disable this behavior for special circumstances by using the + table formatting rule.

For example, in the following table the wrapping is disabled in the left hand cell, while the right hand cell is normal.

 ||{+} The quick ... || The quick ... ||

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Note that you may need to make your browser window narrower to see the impact of this.

Colored Cells - color

color can be used to set the background color of a table cell to the given color. You can use either named colors (like 'red', 'green', etc.) or hex colors ('#FF0000' or '#00FF00').

Some examples:

 ||{*red*}RED RED RED||
 ||{*lightgreen*}LIGHT GREEN||
 ||{*#c0c0c0*}LIGHT GREY||

produces:

RED RED RED

LIGHT GREEN

LIGHT GREY

Note: colored cells requires build 1699 or later

Combining formatting expressions

If you want to combine two or more of these features (example: Floating Right without Border), you have to insert all expressions in the brace.

 ||{T[T-}'''This is left''' (y)||

produces:

This is left

 

 ||{T]T-}'''This is right''' (y)||

produces:

This is right

I used this Feature also to align Images. You make a Table without borders and floating right, and the only thing that is in the table is the link to the image.

Advanced table techniques

Paragraphs and bulleted lists in tables

Multi-line paragraphs and lists in cells can be achieved by using simple WikiTalk (because once you are in a table, FlexWiki does not pay attention to most of the standard formatting). For example, the following:

 ||Two paragraphs||@@["I think therefore I am", Newline, "You thought you were and are not", 
 Newline, "Note how the font gets screwed up"]@@||
 ||A bulleted list||@@[Tab,"* Test1", Newline, Tab, "* Test2"]@@||

gives this table:

Two paragraphs	I think therefore I am You thought you were and are not Note how the font gets screwed up
A bulleted list	Test1 Test2

Multi-line paragraphs and lists in cells can be achieved by using simple WikiTalk. Also note that in the above example the font got smaller (because the CSS is badly written, I guess). This problem can be worked around with the following (which doesn't always work):

 ||Two paragraphs||@@["I think therefore I am", Newline, 
 "%big%You thought you were and are not", Newline, "%big%Note how the font is OK now"]@@||
 ||A bulleted list||@@[Tab,"* %big%Test1", Newline, Tab, "* %big%Test2"]@@||

gives this table:

Two paragraphs	I think therefore I am You thought you were and are not Note how the font is OK now
A bulleted list	Test1 Test2

Question

How about support for multiple embedded tables?

Answer

It is possible, although more complicated. see below

Tables within tables

With slightly more adanced WikiTalk from above it is possible to embed a table inside another table. While you can't make any kind of table definition in in-line WikiTalk, you can define one in a function and then call that function from inside your table.

For instance:

        :MyInnerTableDefinition:{
        ["||Milk||1 cup||", Newline, "||Eggs||2 grade A||", Newline, "||Flour||2 cups||"]
        }
        ||{C2}Ingredients||
        ||Batter||@@MyInnerTableDefinition()@@||
        ||Filling||Anything you want||

Results in:

Ingredients
Batter	Milk 1 cup Eggs 2 grade A Flour 2 cups
Filling	Anything you want

The borders were left in the inner table to make it more clear what was happening, but it is easy to make them go away with table formatting.

Question

How about vertical alignment within a cell?

Answer

That can only be done at this time through modifications to the CSS.