Help talk:Table

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Section sizes Section size for Help:Table (63 sections) Section name Byte count Header Total (Top) 508 508 Tools 13 4,043 Source mode toolbar 2,274 2,274 Visual editor 1,195 1,195 Using other tools 561 561 Table basics 247 3,697 Markup 2,404 2,404 HTML attributes 1,046 1,046 Wikicode syntax tutorial 407 7,354 Begin and end delimiters 397 397 Caption 312 312 Row start 431 431 Cells 879 879 Optional parameters 2,250 2,250 Displaying a pipe character 177 177 Scope 2,501 2,501 Examples 16 1,098 Minimalist table 464 464 Multiplication table 618 618 Whole table operations 30 10,754 Class 2,462 2,462 Captions and summaries 3,570 3,570 Colspan and rowspan 4,692 4,692 Table style 573 12,343 Horizontal text alignment 466 466 Height 665 665 Borders 1,761 1,761 Border-collapse: conflicting or double borders 1,276 1,276 Float table left or right 2,067 2,067 Centering tables 1,825 1,825 Static ('sticky') headers 190 190 Nested tables 3,520 3,520 Column operations 932 932 Width 119 119 Row operations 305 8,969 Starting a new row 509 509 Row style 1,441 1,441 Row headers 1,401 1,401 Row numbers 232 232 Link directly to a row 581 581 Row template 1,877 1,877 Conditional table row 2,623 2,623 Cell operations 23 19,406 Setting cell parameters 709 709 Vertical alignment in cells 2,665 2,665 Cell content indenting and padding 5,644 5,644 Individual cell borders 9,216 9,216 Table cell templates 799 799 Tooltips 350 350 Workarounds 19 5,150 Scrolling tables 178 178 Overflowing tables 1,279 1,279 Non-rectangular tables 970 970 Rendering the pipe 2,704 2,704 Classes 3,862 3,862 Indenting tables 684 1,479 Tables on talk pages 795 795 Public domain image tables 676 676 See also 581 2,292 Templates 1,711 1,711 Notes 36 36 External links 2,011 3,094 Wikimedia sister projects 1,083 1,083 Total 85,812 85,812

Hi all, it took me quite some effort to determine how to change background color of a cell or complete table. It appears that one cannot use html color coding, like f3f3f3, but one should use (in this case), background-color:WhiteSmoke. Can this be added to the page, including a list to a conversion from html into these textual codes? I wanted to use the background color of an image for the complete table. Thanks, Ellywa (talk) 15:54, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

It's working for me. For all table cells, or a single table cell.

I am viewing in dark mode.

style=background-color:#f3f3f3;

Caption text

Header text	Header text	Header text
Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	test
Example	Example	Example

Caption text

Header text	Header text	Header text
Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example

I wonder where the "caption text" disappeared to in the 2nd table.

--Timeshifter (talk) 17:17, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Ellywa: When you specify a colour as a RGB hex triplet (see CSS Color Module Level 3) the hash character (#) is nowadays mandatory. It has always been mandatory for such values when specified in a CSS declaration such as <table style="background-color:#f3f3f3">.

Now for the historical context: prior to HTML 4.0 (December 1997), colour in HTML documents was specified using the BGCOLOR=, TEXT=, LINK=, VLINK= and ALINK= attributes of the <BODY> tag, and the COLOR= attribute of the <FONT> tag. Some browsers also recognised the BGCOLOR= attribute (but not the others) with <TABLE>, <TR>, <TH> and <TD>. When these attributes were used to specify a colour as an RGB hex triplet, many browsers allowed the hash character to be omitted, e.g. <TABLE BGCOLOR=F3F3F3>. All of these techniques were deprecated in HTML 4.0 and declared obsolete in HTML 5.0, and therefore must not be relied upon.

With all that said, the MediaWiki software does permit all of these obsolete techniques to be used, they are not sanitised in any way except for placing double quotes around any unquoted attribute values (so e.g. {| bgcolor=f3f3f3 emits <table bgcolor="f3f3f3">) and therefore the obsolete form is served to the client, and the end result may still work as intended - but only for browsers that recognise these older techniques, not necessarily for all browsers. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:22, 21 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

thank you sooooo much @Redrose64 and @Timeshifter, indeed I am rather an oldie. This is a tremendous help. Ellywa (talk) 13:16, 21 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Recently this site has changed its useful TOC to a useless blob on the side of the page. if not open perminally or having to chick a link to open temporarily it is evil and useless godanov (talk) 14:08, 23 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Godanov: See Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. You might try Vector legacy (2010). It has a different table of contents. --Timeshifter (talk) 17:25, 23 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Recently while working on wikisource to convert an old table, I managed to use leader lines in a table that worked fairly satisfactory. I was wondering if this example would merit inclusion in the guide here, since I would like to share how I did this with other users.

{| style="margin: auto; border: none;"
|-
| || H<sub>2</sub> || N<sub>2</sub> || O<sub>2</sub> || CO || CO<sub>2</sub> || N<sub>2</sub>O || C<sub>2</sub>H<sub>4</sub>
|-
| {{ll||<math display=inline> 10^b \eta_0 </math> }}|| 86 || 166 || 187 || 162 || 138 || 135 || 92
|-
| {{ll||<math display=inline> M </math>}} || 2 || 28 || 32 || 28 || 44 || 44 || 28 
|-
| {{ll||<math display=inline> C </math> }} || 79 || 109 || 127 || 100 || 277 || 260 || 272 
|- 
| {{ll||<math display=inline> (2a)^2 \text{(relative)}  </math> }} || 127 || 228 || 206 || 239 || 239 || 261 || 288
|-
| {{ll||<math display=inline> (2a)^3 \text{(relative)} </math> }}|| 1440 || 3440 || 2963 || 3698 || 3686 || 4230 || 4884 
|}

IanVG (talk) 22:18, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

There are no column headers in this table. sapphaline (talk) 12:18, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I can't test this because Template:ll does not exist. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:44, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Woah, that’s weird, I should have tested this on Wikipedia before testing! The template works on Wikisource and looks like this: [my wikisource userpage](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/User:IanVG/Tables). It’s near the bottom of the page! IanVG (talk) 06:19, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Or, s:User:IanVG/Tables#Finished table. Will examine later: need to go out for the day. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:33, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

How do I eliminate the bolding of text and shading of the cell with 1959 in it?

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ Chart performance for "The Little Drummer Boy" by The Harry Simeone Chorale (1958—2025)
! scope="col"| Holiday<br/>season
! scope="col"| Chart
! scope="col"| Peak<br />position
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|1958
|align="left"|US [[Billboard Hot 100|''Billboard'' Hot 100]]<ref name = WhitburnHSC/>
| style="text-align:center;"|13
|-
! rowspan=2|1959
| style="text-align:left"{{singlechart|UKsinglesbyname|13|artist=Harry Simeone Chorale |artistid=6867}}
|-
|align="left"|US ''Billboard'' Hot 100<ref name = WhitburnHSC/>
| style="text-align:center;"|15
|}

Danaphile (talk) 12:02, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Use this code:

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ Chart performance for "The Little Drummer Boy" by The Harry Simeone Chorale (1958—2025)
! scope="col"| Holiday<br/>season
! scope="col"| Chart
! scope="col"| Peak<br />position
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|1958
|align="left"|US [[Billboard Hot 100|''Billboard'' Hot 100]]<ref name = WhitburnHSC/>
| style="text-align:center;"|13
|-
| rowspan=2|1959
| style="text-align:left"{{singlechart|UKsinglesbyname|13|artist=Harry Simeone Chorale |artistid=6867}}
|-
|align="left"|US ''Billboard'' Hot 100<ref name = WhitburnHSC/>
| style="text-align:center;"|15
|}

sapphaline (talk) 12:14, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks so much! I'm looking at the highlighted line, but I'm not seeing the difference other than the color coding. Since I have much more to do on this project, I'd be interested in learning what I was doing wrong. Thanks again. Danaphile (talk) 13:24, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Your code was:

! rowspan=2|1959

My code is:

| rowspan=2|1959

sapphaline (talk) 13:50, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Danaphile: The "plainrowheaders" class only works on row headers that have a scope of "row" or "rowgroup", i.e. ! scope="row" rowspan=2|1959. In this case, it doesn't seem like they need to be scoped or be headers; hence changing "!" to "|" for a normal data cell. The unused "plainrowheaders" class can be removed too. Jroberson108 (talk) 20:45, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Also, that class only removes the bold styling, not the background color since visually you still need a way to identify the row headers. Jroberson108 (talk) 20:58, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

This song reached number 6 on the Easy Listening chart two years in a row, so I put in rowspan=2 for both of those cells. It's only giving me one row that is split in two.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
|+ Chart performance for "The Little Drummer Boy" by The Harry Simeone Chorale (1958—2025)
! scope="col"| Holiday<br/>season
! scope="col"| Chart
! scope="col"| Peak<br />position
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|1958
|align="left"|US [[Billboard Hot 100|''Billboard'' Hot 100]]<ref name = WhitburnHSC/>
| style="text-align:center;"|13
|-
| rowspan=2|1959
| style="text-align:left"{{singlechart|UKsinglesbyname|13|artist=Harry Simeone Chorale |artistid=6867}}
|-
| rowspan=3 align="left"|US ''Billboard'' Hot 100<ref name = WhitburnHSC/>
| style="text-align:center;"|15
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|1960
| style="text-align:center;"|24
|-
| rowspan=2 style="text-align:center;"|1961
| style="text-align:center;"|22
|-
| rowspan=2 align="left"|US ''Billboard'' [[Adult Contemporary (chart)|Easy Listening]]<ref name = WhitburnHSC/>
| rowspan=2 style="text-align:center;"|6
|-
| rowspan=2 style="text-align:center;"|1962
|-
|align="left"|US ''Billboard'' Hot 100<ref name = WhitburnHSC/>
| style="text-align:center;"|28
|-
|}

Danaphile (talk) 21:01, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Danaphile: Complicated, had to clean it up some first, then flatten it and start over with the spans. Seems to be some issues if the spanning is complex like this one. Removing the span on "6" seems to make it work, otherwise I can't span 1961. At least now 6 matches the above unspanned 13.

Jroberson108 (talk) 22:05, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thinking more about it, having rowspan of 2 on both "US Billboard Easy Listening" and "6" is the same as 1 row, so that might be the issue. Jroberson108 (talk) 22:13, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

This is another manifestation of this "bug" report from almost a year ago; see in partcular my post of 20:33, 4 February 2025. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:52, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Using the original table, added more to 1961 and 1962. That rendering bug seems to be the issue.

Jroberson108 (talk) 23:12, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

It's not a rendering bug, but expected behaviour, as I described in February 2025. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:31, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Interesting, Firefox renders it correctly. Maybe some other engines do to? Layout algorithm differences? Jroberson108 (talk) 23:45, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Note: Moved here from Help talk:Sortable tables (which now redirects here).

Since numerical data sort values are stored in double-precision floating-point format, I had the idea of writing a section about limitations of double precision. In particular, I found that passing a numeric string that parses as +∞ would allow numeric sorting at positive infinity. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 06:13, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Okay, I have an example now (based on Isotopes of bromine). I don't think we have a section on tables with mixed units yet, and the final draft might use a different subset of the table.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+ Isotopes of bromine
|-
! Isotope
! Half-life 
|-
| <sup>75</sup>Br
| data-sort-value = 5802 | 96.7&nbsp;min <!--Sorted in seconds for compatibility of units-->
|-
| <sup>76</sup>Br
| data-sort-value = 58320 | 16.2&nbsp;h
|-
| <sup>77</sup>Br
| data-sort-value = 205344 | 57.04&nbsp;h
|-
| <sup>78</sup>Br
| data-sort-value = 387 | 6.45&nbsp;min
|-
| <sup>79</sup>Br
| data-sort-value = 1e309 | stable <!--Exceeds upper limit of double precision-->
|-
| <sup>80</sup>Br
| data-sort-value = 1060.8 | 17.68&nbsp;min
|-
| <sup>80m</sup>Br
| data-sort-value = 15913.8 | 4.4205&nbsp;h
|-
| <sup>81</sup>Br
| data-sort-value = 1e309 | stable <!--Exceeds upper limit of double precision-->
|-
| <sup>82</sup>Br
| data-sort-value = 127015.2 | 35.282&nbsp;h
|-
| <sup>83</sup>Br
| data-sort-value = 8546.4 | 2.374&nbsp;h
|}

–LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 06:50, 20 January 2026 (UTC) I propose putting this in #Default data type of a column and creating a new section on data with mixed units:Reply

The wiki software uses double-precision floating-point format, which offers approximately 15 significant digits of precision and can represent numbers ranging in absolute value from approximately 4.9×10⁻³²⁴ to 1.7×10³⁰⁸. While tables with extremely large or extremely small values may not sort correctly, the numerical sort value of +∞ (plus infinity) can be encoded by a number that exceeds the upper limit of double precision.

–LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 07:12, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Calling in some help since I don't have the time now: Jroberson108, Redrose64, sapphaline. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:01, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Help with what? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 15:37, 20 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

LaundryPizza03. I moved this discussion here so that it is more likely to get noticed. --Timeshifter (talk) 11:20, 22 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

How can I link up the archive subpages for the original talk page that got redirected? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 11:31, 22 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

They will eventually be copied to the main talk page archives. This has been done with other talk page archives for table talk pages that are not well watched. That will allow them to be found by the main talk page search engine.

For now they are here:

Help talk:Sortable tables/Archive 5

--Timeshifter (talk) 11:47, 22 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

LaundryPizza03. I (and apparently others) are just not finding the time to help here. It might also have to do with that fact that it is advanced-math related. :) Feel free to add info to Help:Sortable tables. Hopefully someone will correct any errors.

For those who are interested, I moved the sortable table talk archives (Help talk:Sortable tables/Archive 5, etc.) to Help talk:Table archives. Archives 11 through 14 here are strictly sortable table archives. Archive 15 begins with the last of those talk threads, and then finishes with the latest Help talk:Table threads that have been archived. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:12, 2 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

I just added this to the page. I have also added a subsection about sorting dimensional quantities. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 22:10, 2 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

When viewing tables with the background set to transparent/none, the text is made a dark grey (#202122) on a black background, making it difficult to read. This can be seen on the Help page under the "Non-rectangular tables" section in "Workarounds":

Help:Table#Non-rectangular tables

Notably, this behavior is different depending on if the background is set to "transparent" or "none": transparent has links be in their usual blue/purple colors, while none has links also be set to that gray color.

I'm sorry if this isn't the right place to report this; There were many places that seemed like they could be viable candidates. Dinjoralo (talk) 14:11, 20 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Dinjoralo: See: Help:Advanced table features#Avoid background:none or transparent.

There are multiple sections on color starting here:

Help:Advanced table features#Colors in tables.

--Timeshifter (talk) 17:34, 20 March 2026

@Dinjoralo: I see the problem in dark mode. I removed that section from the help page until someone can fix it. I don't have the time right now. Here it is:

Cell borders can be hidden by adding border: none; background: none; to the style attributes of either the table or the cell,[note 1] though this may not work in older browsers. Another use case for this is for implementing aligned multi-column tables: Wikitext {| class=wikitable style="border: none; background: none;" ! colspan=2 rowspan=2 style="border: none; background: none;" | [[File:Pfeil_SO.svg |none|link=|20px]] ! colspan=3 | To |- ! Solid !! Liquid !! Gas |- ! rowspan=3 | From ! Solid | Solid–solid transformation || Melting || Sublimation |- ! Liquid | Freezing || {{sdash}} || Boiling/evaporation |- ! Gas | Deposition || Condensation || {{sdash}} |} Produces To Solid Liquid Gas From Solid Solid–solid transformation Melting Sublimation Liquid Freezing — Boiling/evaporation Gas Deposition Condensation — The removal of the link on an image is dependent on it being purely decorative (as it will be ignored by assistive devices). Wikitext {| class=wikitable style="border: none; background: none;" ! scope=col | Year ! scope=col | Size | rowspan=5 style="border: none; background: none;"| ! scope=col | Year ! scope=col | Size | rowspan=5 style="border: none; background: none;"| ! scope=col | Year ! scope=col | Size |- | 1990 || 1000<br>(est) || 2000 || 1357 || 2010 || 1776 |- | 1991 || 1010 || 2001 || 1471 || 2011 || 1888 |- | colspan=2 style="text-align: center;"|⋮ | colspan=2 style="text-align: center;"|⋮ | colspan=2 style="text-align: center;"|⋮ |- | 1999 || 1234 || 2009 || 1616 || 2019 || 1997<br>(est) |} Produces Year Size Year Size Year Size 1990 1000 (est) 2000 1357 2010 1776 1991 1010 2001 1471 2011 1888 ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ 1999 1234 2009 1616 2019 1997 (est) ^ Applying background: none to the entire table will, perhaps predictably, subtly alter its color palette.

--Timeshifter (talk) 16:28, 21 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Understood. I saw a table like this in an article, and didn't know if the original had a specific reason for using those styles. I'll go ahead and edit that article to remove the background color from the table. Dinjoralo (talk) 16:55, 25 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

For a while now, I’ve had an issue where I can’t select a large range of cells that requires scrolling down without the page forcing me to scroll back up. For example, at Foreign relations of Palau, if I try to select all the countries under the “Country” column in the table, I would normally click on “Australia,” hold the button, and scroll down to “Trinidad and Tobago.” However, I’m no longer able to do this because the page keeps scrolling back up. Is anyone else experiencing this? Semsûrî (talk) 09:10, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I've never done that. But if I want to copy a column I go into the visual editor. Then I click on the top cell of what I want to copy. Then shift-click on the bottom cell of what I want to copy. Then ctrl-c to copy the selected cells. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:10, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I did not know of that trick. Thank you. Semsûrî (talk) 15:19, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Semsûrî: You're welcome. See also: Help:Creating tables#Insert blank row/column and the following sections on moving, deleting, and copying columns. And: Help:Table#Column operations. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:32, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hi folks. Not expecting much because I get that people are busy. I am confused with the template: is it possible to format a table so that rows after a certain point are hidden until you click [show], basically a wikitable mw-collapsible innercollapse class inside of the table, so that the section below is hidden? My attempts all broke the table. Table WIP is at User:Catcus_DeMeowwy/Chinese_herbology#Usage_of_some_Chinese_herbs for reference.

Other talk topics asking the same have no replies/solution. I have left other attemps (template:hidden_begin) in tact to show my working. Catcus DeMeowwy (talk) 11:49, 1 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Bumping topic at 21:24, 3 May 2026 (UTC) ~ ~Catcus DeMeowwy (talk)

~ ~Catcus DeMeowwy (talk) 21:24, 3 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Catcus DeMeowwy: See Help:Collapsing tables and more#Collapsible tables. The class is added to the table, not a row. Trying to add markup around specific rows is going to break the table markup. Jroberson108 (talk) 05:00, 4 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Need option for ~ which is often used in front of numbers in tables. For example in this table:

• Casualties of the Gaza war#Civilian to combatant ratio

See Template talk:Circa/doc/sortable and:

• Help:Sortable tables#c. for circa

Need a version of this template for when ~ is used in front of numbers in tables.

Or better yet the mediawiki software needs to ignore ~ if data-sort-type=number is used in the column head.

See Help:Sortable tables#Forcing a column to have a particular data type. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:56, 5 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Timeshifter: On that cell, set data-sort-value="" to the same numeric value excluding the tilde. Jroberson108 (talk) 05:42, 6 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Jroberson108: Thanks. I created this section:

Help:Sortable tables#~ for approximately --Timeshifter (talk) 21:49, 6 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Noleander In Special:Permalink/1353013986#Water sources and sinks, there's two tables that ideally should be rendered with the same width columns without resorting to ugly hacks like fixed pixel widths (which I'm not willing to sink to). The biggest variation is in the first column, with the longest cell being 9 Mouth of Atbarah River in the second table. Is there some way to say (in both tables) Make this column the correct width to contain "9 Mouth of Atbarah River"? That should get both of them layed out the same while still allowing the formatting to adapt to whatever local fonts and screen-size are in use. RoySmith (talk) 17:18, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Or, more generally, is there some way to say "Make these two tables have the same width columns, whatever that turns out to be at render time?" RoySmith (talk) 17:20, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm not enough of a table-smith to know how to accomplish that. I'm sure the table rendering software dynamically sets column widths based on a variety of factors. Forcing table columns to a specific width (even if it is only "match that other table") may run contrary to the spirit of "rely on the table rendering software to set the column widths." But maybe some table guru knows a way. Noleander (talk) 17:58, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

I don't know why one would want the 2 tables to have the exact same column widths.

And why are you linking to an old version of the page? When I look at the latest version (Nile#Water sources and sinks) the 2 tables are fairly similar in column widths. Except for the first column on the left.

You could force the width in various ways. See

• Help:Width of tables, columns, and cells

--Timeshifter (talk) 21:33, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

I want them to have the same widths because the two table display the same type of information and I want to make it easy for a reader to visually follow a column from one to the other. RoySmith (talk) 21:41, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

OK, though I don't think it is that hard to follow down. Dig around that help page I linked to. --Timeshifter (talk) 22:02, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply