Markdown-Tables

Minimum Viable Project

This short tutorial is on the different ways to properly form tables using markdown.

Let’s have 3 classes, taught by teachers:
A with students Andy, Anna, and Ally,
B with students Bob, Billy, and Barb,
C with students Carla, Chad, and Cleo.

The basic most barebones version simply separates columns using ‘ | ‘ (pipe) and the header row from the ensuing rows using ‘————‘ (hyphen).

Like so:

Teacher A  | Teacher B | Teacher C
———————————|———————————|—————————
Andy       | Bob       | Carla 
Anna       | Billy     | Chad
Ally       | Barb      | Cleo

While aesthetically pleasing, there is no need to line up the pipes in such a way as to graphically represent the table, the rendering will do that for you.  The above table would render the same as this one:

Teacher A | Teacher B | Teacher C
—————|—————|——————
Andy|Bobby|Carla
Annalise|Billy|Chad 
Ally|Barb|Cleo

Beyond this it is up to your discretion whether or not you want to include pipes on the sides of you most lateral headers like this:

| Teacher A | Teacher B | Teacher C |
| —————|—————|———————|

But it is not necessary to do so.  

You can also specify the alignment of the columns by putting in colons on the dividing hyphens beneath the headers like this:

Teacher A | Teacher B | Teacher C
:———————- | :———: | ————:
A         | B     | C

This simply aligns the text against the left edge if the colon is on the left side of the header-tuple divider, the right side similarly, or the middle with a colon on both ends of the hyphens. The above would look like this (with the obvious table formatting the rendering applies):

Teacher A | Teacher B | Teacher C
A               B               C


:)

That’s all there is to Markdown tables.  Thanks for reading!