Tables

There are two types of tables with different syntax, Grid Tables, and Simple Tables.

Grid Tables

Grid Tables are described with a visual grid made up of the characters “-“, “=”, “|”, and “+”. The hyphen (“-“) is used for horizontal lines (row separators). The equals sign (“=”) may be used to separate optional header rows from the table body. The vertical bar (“|”) is used for vertical lines (column separators). The plus sign (“+”) is used for intersections of horizontal and vertical lines.

Here is example code for a grid table in a .rst file:

+------------------------+------------+----------+----------+
| Header row, column 1   | Header 2   | Header 3 | Header 4 |
| (header rows optional) |            |          |          |
+========================+============+==========+==========+
| body row 1, column 1   | column 2   | column 3 | column 4 |
+------------------------+------------+----------+----------+
| body row 2             | Cells may span columns.          |
+------------------------+------------+---------------------+
| body row 3             | Cells may  | - Table cells       |
+------------------------+ span rows. | - contain           |
| body row 4             |            | - body elements.    |
+------------------------+------------+---------------------+

This example code generates a grid table that looks like this:

Header row, column 1 (header rows optional)	Header 2	Header 3	Header 4
body row 1, column 1	column 2	column 3	column 4
body row 2	Cells may span columns.
body row 3	Cells may span rows.	Table cells contain body elements.
body row 4

Simple Tables

Simple tables are described with horizontal borders made up of “=” and “-” characters. The equals sign (“=”) is used for top and bottom table borders, and to separate optional header rows from the table body. The hyphen (“-“) is used to indicate column spans in a single row by underlining the joined columns, and may optionally be used to explicitly and/or visually separate rows.

Simple tables are “simpler” to create than grid tables, but are more limited.

Here is example code for a simple table in a .rst file.

=====  =====  =======
  A      B    A and B
=====  =====  =======
False  False  False
True   False  False
False  True   False
True   True   True
=====  =====  =======

This example code generates a simple table that looks like this:

A	B	A and B
False	False	False
True	False	False
False	True	False
True	True	True