Help:Tables

Tables may be authored in wiki pages using either XHTML table elements directly, or using wikicode formatting to define the table. XHTML table elements and their use are well described on various web pages and will not be discussed here. The benefit of wikicode is that the table is constructed of character symbols which tend to make it easier to perceive the table structure in the article editing view compared to XHTML table elements.

As a general rule, it is best to avoid using a table unless you need one. Table markup often complicates page editing.

Wiki table markup summary

{|	table start
|+	table caption, optional; only between table start and first table row
|-	table row, optional on first row -- wiki engine assumes the first row
!	table header cell, optional. 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, required! 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 (|).
|}	table end

• The above marks must start on a new line except the double || and !! for optionally adding consecutive cells to a line. However, blank spaces at the beginning of a line are ignored.
• XHTML attributes. Each mark, except table end, optionally accepts one or more XHTML attributes. Attributes must be on the same line as the mark. Separate attributes from each other with a single space.
  • Cells and caption (| or ||, ! or !!, and |+) hold content. So separate any attributes from content with a single pipe (|). Cell content may follow on same line or on following lines.
  • Table and row marks ({| and |-) do not directly hold content. Do not add pipe (|) after their optional attributes. If you erroneously add a pipe after attributes for the table mark or row mark the parser will delete it and your final attribute if it was touching the erroneous pipe!
• Content may (a) follow its cell mark on the same line after any optional XHTML attributes or (b) on lines below the cell mark. Content that uses wiki markup that itself needs to start on a new line, such as lists, headings, or nested tables, must be on its own new line.
• Escaping to insert a pipe (|) character into a table use the <nowiki> markup

Basics

The following table lacks borders and good spacing but shows the simplest wiki markup table structure.

You type	You get
{| |Orange |Apple |- |Bread |Pie |- |Butter |Ice cream |}	Orange Apple Bread Pie Butter Ice cream

The cells in the same row can be listed on one line separated by || (two pipe symbols).

Extra spaces within cells in the wiki markup, as in the wiki markup below, do not affect the actual table rendering.

You type	You get
{| | Orange || Apple || more |- | Bread || Pie || more |- | Butter || Ice cream || and more |}	Orange Apple more Bread Pie more Butter Ice cream and more

Table headers

Table headers can be created by using "!" (exclamation mark) instead of "|" (pipe symbol). Headers usually show up bold and centered by default.

You type	You get
{| ! Item ! Amount ! Cost |- |Orange |10 |7.00 |- |Bread |4 |3.00 |- |Butter |1 |5.00 |- !Total | |15.00 |}	Item Amount Cost Orange 10 7.00 Bread 4 3.00 Butter 1 5.00 Total 15.00

Caption

A table caption can be added to the top of any table as follows.

You type	You get
{| |+Food complements |- |Orange |Apple |- |Bread |Pie |- |Butter |Ice cream |}	Food complements Orange Apple Bread Pie Butter Ice cream

XHTML attributes

You can add XHTML attributes to tables. For the authoritative source on these, see the W3C's HTML 4.01 Specification page on tables.

Attributes on tables

Placing attributes after the table start tag ({|) applies attributes to the entire table.

You type	You get
{| border="1" |Orange |Apple |12,333.00 |- |Bread |Pie |500.00 |- |Butter |Ice cream |1.00 |}	Orange Apple 12,333.00 Bread Pie 500.00 Butter Ice cream 1.00

Attributes on cells

You can put attributes on individual cells. For example, numbers may look better aligned right.

You type	You get
{| border="1" |Orange |Apple |align="right" | 12,333.00 |- |Bread |Pie |align="right" | 500.00 |- |Butter |Ice cream |align="right" | 1.00 |}	Orange Apple 12,333.00 Bread Pie 500.00 Butter Ice cream 1.00

You can also use cell attributes when you are listing multiple cells on a single line. Note that the cells are separated by ||, and within each cell the attribute(s) and value are separated by |.

You type	You get
{| border="1" | Orange || Apple || align="right" | 12,333.00 |- | Bread || Pie || align="right" | 500.00 |- | Butter || Ice cream || align="right" | 1.00 |}	Orange Apple 12,333.00 Bread Pie 500.00 Butter Ice cream 1.00

Attributes on rows

You can put attributes on individual rows, too.

You type	You get
{| border="1" |Orange |Apple |align="right"|12,333.00 |- |Bread |Pie |align="right"|500.00 |- style="font-style:italic; color:green;" |Butter |Ice cream |align="right"|1.00 |}	Orange Apple 12,333.00 Bread Pie 500.00 Butter Ice cream 1.00

HTML colspan and rowspan

You can use HTML colspan and rowspan attributes on cells for advanced layout.

You type	You get
{| border="1" !colspan="6"|Shopping List |- |rowspan="2"|Bread & Butter |Pie |Buns |Danish |colspan="2"|Croissant |- |Cheese |colspan="2"|Ice cream |Butter |Yoghurt |}	Shopping List Bread & Butter Pie Buns Danish Croissant Cheese Ice cream Butter Yoghurt

With HTML attributes and CSS styles

CSS style attributes can be added with or without other HTML attributes.

You type	You get
{| style="color:green; background-color:#ffffcc;" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" border="1" |Orange |Apple |- |Bread |Pie |- |Butter |Ice cream |}	Orange Apple Bread Pie Butter Ice cream

Attributes can be added to the caption and headers as follows.

You type	You get
{| border="1" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" |+ align="bottom" style="color:#e76700;" |''Food complements'' |- |Orange |Apple |- |Bread |Pie |- |Butter |Ice cream |}	Food complements Orange Apple Bread Pie Butter Ice cream

Caveats

Negative numbers

If you start a cell on a new line with a negative number with a minus sign (or a parameter that evaluates to a negative number), your table can get broken, because the characters |- will be parsed as the wiki markup for table row, not table cell. To avoid this, insert a space before the value (| -6) or use in-line cell markup (|| -6).

CSS vs Attributes

Table borders specified through CSS rather than the border attribute will render incorrectly in a small subset of text browsers.

Syntax

{{Languages|PageName}}

• PageName (optional) - the name of the page to display language links for. If omitted then the English version of the current page is used. This parameter can normally be omitted, as it is only required if you want to link to a page other than the one you place the template on, which is very uncommon. If this parameter is used on a sub-page make sure you supply the root name, not the full page name (e.g. on MediaWiki/fr you would need to use {{Languages|MediaWiki}} and not {{Languages|MediaWiki/fr}}).

Usage

The template should only be placed on pages that exist in more than one language, and it should be placed in the same location on each translation of the page.

The English version of a page is always the main version, with all other languages as sub-pages, named using the appropriate language code (see below).

For example, on the Main Page you would include the text {{Languages}}, both on Main Page itself, and on each of its language sub-pages. The template automatically creates links to any language sub-pages that exist, e.g. Main Page/ja<tt>, <tt>Main Page/fr, and ignores non-existant languages.

See Project:Language policy for further details about translating pages.

Supported languages

This shows you the name of each language's sub-page (using Main Page as an example). Other languages may be added easily as necessary. Please use the appropriate prefix, as used on Wikipedia when adding a new language. Please do not add languages for which no pages exist yet, as this will increase the time needed to include the template without adding any benefit (languages are only displayed to the user when the relevant page exists).

The link on the language names goes to the Wikipedia in that language. If no Wikipedia in your language exists, do not add pages in that language to MediaWiki.org! This wiki is not the place for language advocacy - please go through the correct channels, and once your language has a Wikipedia then please return to add content here.

Page Name	Language
Main Page	English
Main Page/af	Afrikaans
Main Page/ar	Arabic
Main Page/az	Azerbaijani
Main Page/bcc	Southern Balochi
Main Page/bg	Bulgarian
Main Page/br	Breton
Main Page/ca	Catalan
Main Page/cs	Czech
Main Page/da	Danish
Main Page/de	German
Main Page/el	Greek
Main Page/es	Spanish
Main Page/fa	Persian
Main Page/fi	Finnish
Main Page/fr	French
Main Page/gl	Galician
Main Page/gu	Gujarati
Main Page/he	Hebrew
Main Page/hu	Hungarian
Main Page/id	Indonesian
Main Page/it	Italian
Main Page/ja	Japanese
Main Page/ka	Georgian
Main Page/ko	Korean
Main Page/ksh	Kölsch
Main Page/ml	Malayalam
Main Page/mr	Marathi
Main Page/ms	Malay
Main Page/nl	Nederlands
Main Page/no	Norwegian
Main Page/oc	Occitan
Main Page/pl	Polish
Main Page/pt	Portugese
Main Page/pt-br	Brazilian Portuguese
Main Page/ro	Romanian
Main Page/ru	Russian
Main Page/si	Sinhalese
Main Page/sk	Slovak
Main Page/sq	Albanian
Main Page/sr	Serbian
Main Page/sv	Swedish
Main Page/ta	Tamil
Main Page/th	Thai
Main Page/tr	Turkish
Main Page/uk	Ukrainian
Main Page/vi	Vietnamese
Main Page/yue	Cantonese
Main Page/zh	Chinese
Main Page/zh-hans	Chinese (Simplified)
Main Page/zh-hant	Chinese (Traditional)
Main Page/zh-tw	Chinese (Taiwan)

Example

Here is how the language bar looks on the MediaWiki page: