Wikipedia talk:When to use tables

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[edit] Example table

For something as simple as an album lsiting, I really think the following is more appropriate:

1980 - Ultra Wave (Warner Brothers)
1988 - What's Bootsy Doin'? (Columbia)

... etc

-- Tarquin 14:17 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I totally agree, actually... I used that mainly because it was a practical example, rather than the abstract "first heading/first cell" stuff that was there before. I wanted the first example to be simple, since it's introductory. If you could supply a better example that is equally simple, that would be great! Feel free to revise the "when tables are appropriate" section, also. -- Wapcaplet 16:37 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I put a multiplication table in for the first example. Seems like a better use of tables, and it's not overly complex (aside from the abundance of td elements). What do you think? -- Wapcaplet 16:48 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

[edit] End tags

Why does this page recommend using the end tags </th>, </td> and </tr>? They are not required by the HTML 4.01 specification, and I don't know of any browser that needs them. They are the biggest cause of HTML errors in tables, because it's so easy to get one wrong. --Zundark 19:13 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Partly because the old section about tables (which used to be at Wikipedia:How to edit a page) recommended using them; partly because the W3C, and other web standards bodies, in general recommend them, partly because they are required by XHTML 1.0, which Wikipedia may one day switch to (and it would be nasty if all the tables suddenly broke). Other reasons include: because I think it's a good idea; because it is less ambiguous and (IMHO) less error-prone; because some browsers do need them (in particular, tables without proper end tags seem to get messed up in Lynx, though I have not done much testing on it). I've seen no evidence to suggest that their usage causes additional errors; yes, it's easy to get one wrong, but it's just as easy to get any other HTML tag wrong, and in my experience it's easier to find (and fix) errors if the end tags are explicit. -- Wapcaplet 00:32 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I'm very surprised that you haven't seen any evidence to suggest that using unnecessary end tags causes additional errors in tables. I've fixed many HTML errors in tables on Wikipedia, and almost all of them were clearly a result of using such end tags. (However, I haven't tried to fix the tables used in chemical element articles. These tables have invalid TD attributes, and this obviously has nothing to do with using end tags.) In any case, I've added a suggestion to check tables using the W3C validator - if people would do this (and do it again every time the table coding is modified), then their tables should be free of HTML errors even if they use end tags.

I don't think we need to worry about XHTML compatibility, because if Wikipedia converts to XHTML everything will have to be run through a conversion script anyway. For this reason I think the remark about XHTML in the article is misleading and should be removed. --Zundark 12:21 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Fair enough. I've removed the XHTML comment, and rephrased that section to better indicate the optional stuff. -- Wapcaplet 12:40 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Possibly the sample w/o the optional closing tags makes it easier to grasp. -- User:Docu

Wait. I don't get your question... Lemme see here.

"Why does this article suggest that closing tags such as </th>, </td> and </tr> should be used?"

Right? You seem to be suggesting that these should simply be left unclosed. That's pointless in my opinion, and using closing tags makes everything look more formal. :-) I'd rather have messy code be rejected than accepted. (In short: Go go XHTML!) --Ihope127 02:07, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't know why you're replying to a two-year-old question, but anyway, the point I was making, as I had already explained, was that end tags were causing lots of invalid HTML, because people get them wrong so often. But things have changed since then. In particular, Wikipedia now has wiki markup for tables, so editors no longer need to mess around with HTML for tables. Also, the Wikipedia software now fixes some common mistakes in HTML/XHTML table markup before putting it in the output page, so getting the end tags wrong no longer matters as much as it used to. Of course, tables with lots of end tags are still hard to read (without syntax highlighting), especially if some of the end tags are wrong, but this is a relatively minor point. --Zundark 16:37, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Images

I can't get the <div> thing for images to work right. It sizes itself to the text rather than to the image, which is understandable, but becomes a layout issue if I need to use a large caption. Instead, I've resorted to the use of tables with width= attributes, which have problems of their own. -Smack 20:54 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Ah, that is a good point. The only solution I know of for this is to explicitly set the div width, like so:

<div style="float: right; margin: 0 0 1em 1em; width: 200px;"> ... <div>

(Where the pixel width is equal to the width of your image). CSS also supports a "max-width", which would really be better (so the width could be flexible to a certain extent), but it doesn't seem to work in some browsers (namely MSIE). I will put a comment about this in the article too. Thanks! -- Wapcaplet 00:32 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

What do the other parameter values mean? This really belongs in the wikipedia:Image use policy, maybe even the wikipedia:Boilerplate text. -Smack

Yeah, good point. And now that I check Wikipedia:Image use policy, I see that it's already mentioned:

It seems like some browsers may need to have the explicit width of the image specified, i.e. width:250;, the inclusion of this specification is optional, but recommended if you have a caption longer than a few words. For large amounts of caption text, take out the text-align:center; to make it left-justified.

Wouldn't hurt to be more explicit on that point, though. As for the other parameters, float:right obviously causes the image to be floated to the right; the margin parameters are a shorthand for margin-top, margin-right, etc., and are, in order, top/right/bottom/left (clockwise order). That could also stand to be mentioned somewhere, too. The "1em" specifies that the margin at that point should be one "font size" unit (something like 12 point with most fonts, but of course will be proportional to the font size that the user has chosen), and works in most browsers that I know of (except MSIE 3.0 which supposedly interprets it as "1 pixel", but who uses that anymore :) If you are interested in more info, the CSS2 Specification has probably more than you would ever want to know about the subject. -- Wapcaplet 10:24 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

( moved from User talk:Docu )

In recent days I've been searching out and repairing broken table HTML, and I just noticed that you undid my repairs over at Berlin Film Festival. Removing all the closing tags from the table (</td>. </tr>, etc.) may make it seem nicer on the eyes when editing, but in reality that's not valid HTML anymore. Please leave the closing tags intact. Bryan

Bryan: Please discuss your changes first on Wikipedia talk:How_to_use_tables, otherwise leave tables intact as they are. Before replacing characters with their HTML named character entity, see Wikipedia:Special characters. Both make it more complicated to edit pages. -- User:Docu

What's to discuss? Wikipedia talk:How_to_use_tables uses closing tags in all of its examples, and mentions that they're optional - meaning I can put them in if I want to without violating any of Wikipedia's standards. As for the special characters, they're recommended against only because of a bug in the current Wikipedia code that causes difficulty searching for them. The HTML tidy program I'm using automatically substitutes special characters, so I figured I'd leave them in where they occur. I'll take that eactue out of the Berlin Film Festival table, though, in the spirit of compromise; it's just lack of closing tags that I'm going about fixing. Bryan

I don't mind if you add them to tables you or someone else made, but I prefer that you leave them out from tables I made, it makes it more complicated to maintain them, if they are in. User:Docu

Alright, I'll quit nagging on this particular article - it makes no difference to the end user, after all, and it's largely just an aesthetic hangup of mine that motivates me on this. Bryan

It's just that eventually you may want to add them to List of capitals of subnational entities -- User:Docu

(/moved from User talk: Docu)

[edit] See also table

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump on Tuesday, July 8th, 02003.

I tend to disagree with what user:Mydogategodshat is currently doing. He has set a 6 links design, and is currently adding them to many articles. First the design is quite different from what is current practice. But more importantly, for some of the articles, it introduces links to articles that have nothing to do with the current topic. If such a practice becomes common, we are gonna find hundreds of links at the bottom of articles. I don't think it is very wise.

For example, he put this new design on the [1]

similarly, I could set a list of six links about ecology, and put them there...till the point where we would have dozen of packages of six links. Here for example, I don't think that List of Marketing Topics is in any way relevant.

As I also told him, I also think it is not a good idea to introduce html code so liberally, as it makes the article edition more scary to non html-introduced people. I think that whenever possible, we should keep editing easy. The improvement does not appear to me so obvious that it absolutely require to introduce this.

I would be glad to have some feedback on this.

User:anthere

It's a table. It's grim. Change to a plain list if these lists are really necessary. -- Tarquin 16:16 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Agreed. These should be lists, if they should be there at all. See Wikipedia:How to use tables (most of which I wrote, I admit, but it's all true, I swear). They're sort of like see-alsos, but aren't really always related to the article... hmm. -- Wapcaplet 03:16 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)

End moved discussion.

[edit] Alternative: Data objects

Most of the examples above could be handled by having a "data view class". This is not a short-term solution, though, nor will it cover all possible uses of tables. See my suggestion at http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki_markup_tables --AndrewKepert 01:31, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I'd like to revisit the issue of div vs. table. It's clear the div syntax is easier on HTML neophytes, but I've run into so many image align problems with div on various browsers, especially IE on Macintosh, that I wonder if table might be easier and better in the end. Anyone else see this problem with div a lot? It seems to happen almost all the time on certain browser/OS combinations when the image should be aligning left or right amid wrapping text (the image will just sit there in the center). JDG 05:34, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Other options

Possibility to convert CSV data to wiki-(HTML)-tables
Offer a series of choices in the stylesheets, instead of using, e.g. <table border=1 cellpadding=3 cellspacing=1 style="border-collapse: collapse">

--User:Docu

[edit] Sorted tables

From my very limited understanding of both Wikipedia and scripts, it seems that Java scripts, etc. cannot be enabled or script files uploaded at Wikipedia, at least by regular users. However, I was wondering whether there could be some way to allow in code to make sortable tables. Although the ones I have seen online do not all seem to work for all browsers, it would be a wonderful resource I think--particularly for the almanac-type page (see List_of_reference_tables) to be able to have tables sortable (i.e., circumvent the need for adding interactive databases). Would Wikipedia (and Wiktionary also) be willing to allow such a script to be addable (preferably with a simple alias activation code) to allow such sortable tables? To give an example of such code (though I don't know if this one would be ideal for Wikipedia), I found one at http://builder.cnet.com/webbuilding/pages/Programming/Scripter/080999/?tag=st.bl.7264cd3.plbl Thanks! - Brettz9 20:20 Apr 20, 2003 (UTC)

I think human sorting makes more sense - keeps markup simple and obvious, and it's not massively difficult to keep things in order. If it's not worth the effort to keep a list sorted... is it worth the effort to keep the list? Martin

I don't think I understand your comment. It involves an extraordinary amount of work to sort a list manually. And requiring it will mean that pages are not created that could be useful. For example, at the Wiktionary site, we have started a Swadesh list of 207 English words translated into about 8 languages per page. It would be nice, I think (and others have said so also), to be able to sort this in different ways. For example, you could click on one column heading to view the page in the traditional order Ogden placed them. You could click another heading to view them alphabetically by English (or any other language). Another column could be clicked to view them sorted by category, etc. It is too much work to create separate pages for each of these sorts. And even if someone did, then any changes made to one, would need to be made to all. - Brettz9 00:04 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)

You can always use a text-processing tool to sort the list offline. -- Tim Starling 03:52 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, that can be useful for things like adding columns when you are editing, but it is cumbersome to do this for any table a person just wants to view in a different manner. I think it can also deter people who are not familiar with the possibility or know-how to use this technique to enable them to do so (and again, it places added steps for everyone). After all, the user-friendliness of Wiki is not only its draw, but also allows its content to grow. And different sorts might be seen as their own kind of content. - Brettz9 15:24 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)

On most sites when you click a thumbnail image you get taken to a larger copy on a seperate page. We could make it so that users can click on a table to get it on a sperate page that can be sorted any way. Then there wouldn't be an problem with javascript or dhtml (which I think are both undesireable in this site). Cgs

You're thinking of having multiple sorts of the same list? Ok, in that case I can see your point. I still wonder if the benefits outweight the increased markup complexity, though... Martin

Yes. Well, that's why I was hoping that if it were possible, that some abbreviated wiki alias code could also be assigned to minimize all the extra mark-up. I agree though, seeing a page beginning with a lot of scripting code would be intimidating to many potential contributors. - Brettz9 15:24 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)

For a table like List of countries by population density it would be nice, we could dispense with separate tables for area and population, thus avoiding redundancy, hence facilitating updating. - Patrick 17:44 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)

Similar to the option "&printable=yes" [2], wikipedia could offer a version allowing sortable tables "&sortable=yes", e.g. a with a link like [3] (sample from above). It should be possible to convert simple <table> <tr> <th> <td> markup to such tables. --- User:Docu

However it can be done, I also think it would be nice--if it is possible--to be able to have the different sort configurations show up somehow in the URL, so that a person could share the specific sort configuration with others without them having to re-sort the list manually. It wouldn't be essential, but I think it would be nice. Of course, these are all "unfunded mandates", since I am not able to bring this into fruition... :) - Brettz9 00:06 Apr 22, 2003 (UTC)

User:Hyacinth/How to use tables - Hyacinth

For those interested Bug 2001. Discordance 03:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Script to convert to new table syntax

from the Wikipedia:Village pump

Please where can I find the script to convert to the new table sysntax ? Kpjas 22:29, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm not aware of a script. The new markup is described in MediaWiki User's Guide: Using tables. Elf 23:40, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It is in the Python Wikipedia Robot Framework, http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/pywikipediabot/pywikipedia/. The bot itself is table2wiki.py, but to have it work you also need wikipedia.py, config.py and and a reasonably recent version of Python. Also download and read CONTENTS, and create user-config.py as described there. Subscribing to the pywikipediabot mailing list (see http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=93107 ) would also be useful, as would getting permission to use a bot first. Andre Engels 02:08, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

There is a robot used on de: to convert the tables - but it must be human-monitored as HTML-tables can contain many mistakes but still get rendered by the browsers correctly - for example a missing </tr> is just ignored. However if the robot misses it it can destroy the table. You might ask User:Head, as he is one of those who used to run that robot on de:. andy 09:28, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree - you can use the bot to do the conversion for you, but you should still check the page afterward to see whether it has not made any errors. Still, it's a nifty bit of programming. Andre Engels 19:29, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

See http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/tables.html#h-11.2.5 : The end tag for TR is optional. -- Hankwang 09:43, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Is it useful to convert all tables? The new syntax may be suitable for some of the tables, but for many tables, the simple five tags <table>, <tr>, <th> or <td>, and </table> are much easier to use. Given that the software supports both, Wikipedians should keep the choice. -- User:Docu

[edit] about id&#61toc

from the Wikipedia:Village pump

What's the meaning of id=toc of the table params (apears in Template:JanuaryCalendar and other tables). Guillermo 12:39, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It applies the formatting defined in the style sheets [4], [5] for the automatic TOC to the table. The CSS don't offer another selection of styles for tables. -- User:Docu

[edit] Table captions

Is it possible to get effect of the caption in wikicode? HTML equivalent of wanted result would be:

Some caption
first	second
third	fourth

Note that Some caption appears without borders while the cells are bordered. This is how typical countries of the world are formated. --Romanm 19:28, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yep! Check out m:MediaWiki User's Guide: Using tables. -- Wapcaplet 02:07, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Lack of explanation about width of columns

I'm feeling pretty grouchy about the fact that apparently it's not possible for me to set the width of the individual columns in a table. After screwing around for several hours with the tables, plus reading the so-called "help" over and over, I finally discovered that the columns readjust themselves in width according to how many letters are typed into one of the cells. Thanks a lot for making this so obvious to beginners -- I've only used spreadsheets for about 15 years now, and this is the first time I've ever seen one in which the width of the columns cannot be set to whatever figure I want it.

If I'm wrong about this -- and it's entirely possible, I admit -- then I wish someone would go to my new article Professional Tennis Championships and do a little editing so that I can see how the width of columns can be adjusted.

And, of course, someone can delete the paragraph I just inserted at the top of the Help article about tables....Hayford Peirce 03:37, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You can specify cell widths. I've added a new section to the page explaining how. See Wikipedia:How to use tables#Setting parameters. Angela . 14:17, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've made this request elsewhere before, but is there any chance Wikipedia could allow sortable tables? There is some javascript code on the web which can be used to allow tables to become sortable (by clicking on a column header) if that would help. I think this would be tremendously useful for many sites (also for Wiktionary, etc.). Brettz9 15:54, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you have requested it before, but it doesn't seem to be at SourceForge, which is the only place developers are likely to see it. I suggest you add it there. Angela . 21:20, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks! [[User:Brettz9|Brettz9 (talk)]] 19:39, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Table with solid borders?

Why no td bg?

1	2
11	22

How do you make a solid border table when global css is turned off and this doesn't work?

<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td style="font-size:20px;"><strong>Why no td bg?</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#660000">
<table border="0" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="2">
<tr bgcolor="#EFEFEF">
<td>1</td>
<td>2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#FFFFCC">11</td>
<td>22</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

This may be one way where an extra blank row (tr) is added: List of bridges by length

[edit] coloured columns

Is there any way (with the wiki-syntax) to make a whole column coloured (the way illistrated only makes one cell coloured)? The bellman 03:58, 2004 Nov 29 (UTC)

[edit] A new way to edit tables / Separate table namespace

(I've crossposted this a few times and received no response. Maybe this is the right place for a discussion?)

I think tables should have their own namespace, as they are fundamentally different from articles and clutter up the markup.
I have an idea for a new kind of editor specifically for the table namespace, to make tables more easily editable in the spirit of a wiki.

Please see the discussion on Wikipedia:Proposal for intuitive table editor and namespace - Omegatron 15:29, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Some Help?

Could someone please help me format the table on page: Ajhs?

Thanks, Mickeyreiss 01:20, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What's the question? Noisy | Talk 08:01, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

I'm just trying to get that Table on top to look nicer. Mickeyreiss 21:56, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hello! My name is the Collector!

{| border=1 align=right cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0 width=300 style="margin: 0 0 1em 1em; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%;"
|+<big><big>'''République française'''</big></big>
| align="center" colspan="2"|
{| border=0 cellpadding=2 cellspacing=0 style="background:#f9f9f9; text-align:center;"
| width="130px"| [[Image:france_flag_large.png|125px|Flag of France]] || align=center width=130px|[[Image:France_coa.gif|115px|France: Coat of Arms]]
|-
| width="130px"| ([[Flag of France|In Detail]]) || align=center width=130px| ([[Coat of arms of the French Republic|In Detail]])
|}
|-
| align=center colspan=2 | <small>''National [[motto]]: [[Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité]]<br>([[French language|French]]: Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood)''</small>
|-
| align=center colspan=2 style="background:#f9f9f9;" | [[image:LocationFrance.png|Location of France]]
|-
|'''[[Official language]]''' || [[French language|French]]<sup>1</sup>
|-
|'''[[Capital]]''' || [[Paris]]
|-
|'''Largest City''' || [[Paris]]
|-
|'''[[President of France|President]]''': || [[Jacques Chirac]]
|-
|'''[[List of Prime Ministers of France|Prime Minister]]''': || [[Jean-Pierre Raffarin]]
|-
| '''[[Area]]'''<br> - Total<sup>2</sup><br><br><br> - [[Metropolitan France]]<sup>3</sup><br><br><br><br> - % water
| [[List of countries by area|Ranked 42nd]] <br> [[1 E11 m2|674,843 km²]] <br> (260,558 sq. mi.)<br> Ranked 47th <br> [[1 E11 m2|551,695 km²]]<sup>4</sup><br>(213,011 sq. mi.)<br>[[1 E11 m2|543,965 km²]]<sup>5</sup><br>(210,026 sq. mi.)<br> 0.26%
|-
| '''[[Population]]'''<br>(January 1, 2005)<br> - Total<sup>2</sup><br> - [[Metropolitan France]]<sup>3</sup><br> - [[Population density|Density]]<sup>3</sup>
| [[List of countries by population|Ranked 20th]]<br><br> 63,044,000<br>60,560,000<br>111/km²
|-
| '''[[List of countries by GDP (nominal)|GDP]]''' ([[Purchasing power parity|PPP]])<br>  - Total ([[2003]])<br>  - GDP/head
| [[List of countries by GDP|Ranked 5th]]<br>$1.661 Trillion<br>$27,600
|-
| '''[[Currency]]'''
| [[Euro]] (€)<sup>6</sup>, [[CFP Franc]]<sup>7</sup>
|-
| '''[[Time zone]]'''<br> - in [[European Summer Time|summer]]
| [[Central European Time|CET]] ([[Coordinated Universal Time|UTC]]+1)<sup>3</sup><br>[[Central European Summer Time|CEST]] ([[Coordinated Universal Time|UTC]]+2)<sup>3</sup>
|-
| '''[[National anthem]]'''
| ''[[La Marseillaise]]''
|-
| '''[[Top-level domain|Internet TLD]]'''
| [[.fr]]
|-
| '''[[List of country calling codes|Calling Code]]'''
| 33
|-
| colspan=2 | <small>
<sup>1</sup> See [[#Demographics]] for regional languages<br>
<sup>2</sup> Whole territory of the French Republic, including all the overseas departments and territories, but excluding the French territory of Terre Adélie in Antarctica where sovereignty is suspended since the signing of the [[Antarctic Treaty]] in 1959<br>
<sup>3</sup> Metropolitan (i.e. European) France only<br>
<sup>4</sup> French National Geographic Institute data<br>
<sup>5</sup> French Land Register data, which exclude lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km² (0.386 sq. mi. or 247 acres) as well as the [[estuary|estuaries]] of rivers<br>
<sup>6</sup> Whole of the French Republic except the overseas territories in the Pacific Ocean<br>
<sup>7</sup> French overseas territories in the Pacific Ocean only</small>
|-
| colspan=2 align=right style="padding: 0 5px 0 5px" | <small>{{edit|Template:France infobox|}}</small>
|}

{| id="toc" style="float:right; width:210px; margin-left: 1em;"
|+ style="font-size: large; margin: inherit;"|'''Adlai E. Stevenson High School'''
|-<!--Do not wikify items in the school profile table as they are already wikified in the article!
This table was created for the Adlai E. Stevenson High School article and is edited from the Moanalua High School article.-->
|colspan="2" style="text-align:center; background:ffffff;"|
{| id="toc"
|- style="text-align:center;"
|[[Image:Stevenson_Main.jpg|210px|Adlai E. Stevenson High School]]
|- style="text-align:center;"
|}
|-
|bgcolor=lightgrey|'''Name'''||bgcolor=lightgrey|Adlai E. Stevenson High School
|-
|bgcolor=darkgray|'''Address'''||bgcolor=darkgray|1 Stevenson Drive
|-
|colspan="2" style="text-align:center; background:ffffff;"|
{| id="toc"
|- style="text-align:center;"
|[[Image:Stevenson_Aerial.jpg|210px|An aerial photo of Adlai E. Stevenson High School]]
|- style="text-align:center;"
|}
|-
|bgcolor=lightgrey|'''Town'''||bgcolor=lightgrey|Lincolnshire, IL 60069
|-
|bgcolor=darkgray|'''Phone'''||bgcolor=darkgray|847-634-4000
|-
|bgcolor=lightgrey|'''Established'''||bgcolor=lightgrey|[[1965]]
|-
|bgcolor=darkgray|'''Type'''||bgcolor=darkgray|[[Public education|Public]] [[Secondary education|Secondary]]
|-
|bgcolor=lightgrey|'''Superintendent'''||bgcolor=lightgrey|Dr. Timothy D. Kanold
|-
|bgcolor=darkgray|'''Principal'''||bgcolor=darkgray|Dr. Douglas Domeracki (since [[2004]])
|-
|bgcolor=lightgrey|'''Religion'''||bgcolor=lightgrey|None
|-
|bgcolor=darkgray|'''Students'''||bgcolor=darkgray|Coeducational
|-
|bgcolor=lightgrey|'''Grades'''||bgcolor=lightgrey|9 to 12
|-
|bgcolor=darkgray|'''Enrollment'''||bgcolor=darkgray|4505
|-
|bgcolor=lightgrey|'''Students per Teacher'''||bgcolor=lightgrey|16.2
|-
|bgcolor=darkgray|'''Average Class Size'''||bgcolor=darkgray|20.7
|-
|bgcolor=lightgrey|'''District'''||bgcolor=lightgrey|District 125
|-
|bgcolor=darkgray|'''Mascot'''||bgcolor=darkgray|Patriot
|-
|bgcolor=lightgrey|'''Colors'''||bgcolor=lightgrey|[[Green]] and [[Gold]]
|-
|bgcolor=darkgray|'''Distinctions'''||bgcolor=darkgray|[[Blue Ribbon Schools Program|1987, 1991, 1998, and 2002 National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence]], [[1998 New American High Schools Award]],  ranked among the top 100 high schools in America by [[US News]] and [[World Report]]
|-
|bgcolor=lightgrey|'''Average [[SAT]] Scores'''||bgcolor=lightgrey|Verbal: 602<br>Math: 651
|-
|bgcolor=darkgray|'''School Website'''||bgcolor=darkgray|[http://www.district125.k12.il.us/ Home Page]
|-
|colspan="2" style="text-align:center; background:ffffff;"|
{| id="toc"
|- style="text-align:center;"
|[[Image:Stevenson_Staff.jpg|210px|The staff of Adlai E. Stevenson High School]]
|- style="text-align:center;"
|}
|}

WHY!?! --Ihope127 15:50, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] should this page be deprecated?

with a big bad link at the top saying to go to the meta page instead of editing this one? - Omegatron 20:26, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Link to my Table: namespace proposal

I'd like to link to my Wikipedia:Proposal for intuitive table editor and namespace as a potential solution to some of the things in "Possible problems" section, but I don't know if such links are really appropriate on style pages. Add if you think it's good. - Omegatron 13:54, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] even and odd CSS

Is there a way to implement even and odd CSS styles in the wiki table markup? Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 22:51, 2005 August 29 (UTC)

[edit] wikitable?

where is class wikitable defined? I looked at main.css and commonPrint.css but couldn't find it. dab (ᛏ) 10:55, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Mediawiki:Common.css — Omegatron 17:32, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Should this be renamed?

Should this article be renamed? It really seems to be more of a "Table use policy" than a "how to use tables". The laster suggests more of a technical how-to. Irrevenant 08:19, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Needs more examples

This article is not very helpful for newcomers to Wikipedia and HTML tables.

It has a section entitled When tables are appropriate, which lists a lot of typical uses for tables, but gives no examples of how these uses can be implemented.

It has a section on When tables are inappropriate, and tives very nice examples of what not to do.

A newcomer generally comes to this section looking for advice as to how to edit a table. For that it would be very helpful if editors experienced in working with tables considered the various parameters used in designing a table (e.g, line type, line style, table location, column width, row height, line color, background color,...) and wrote up a brief discussion (with a clear explanation and an example) showing how each of these parameters functions.

Sorry if I sound cranky but I just edited a table, made a mess of it, and couldn't find the answers to my questions in either How to use tables or Meta:Help:Table. --SteveMcCluskey 17:33, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

What were your questions that you couldn't find answers to? — Omegatron 18:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply.

The main issue was the syntax for the opening section where the format of the table was set up and how to set line type and line style. whenever I try to insert them, everything else goes to hell in a handbasket, e.g, the table moves from the right side to the left.

If you want to see the table I'm working with it's at Talk:Atomism/Temp; the table I started with is at Atomism. I'd like to restore the lines framing the table and separating the rows and columns of the table -- preferably as thin hairlines.

--SteveMcCluskey 20:07, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help!

I'm utterly confused about how to make the kind of simple tables that are used on such pages as Homosexuality and religion. The coding text is so simple that it seems like it might be a template, since it seems to be linking to another page. Are these properly called tables, and how do you make them!?!? user:Whoistheroach

The tables on the page you mentioned are in fact templates, but Help:Tables has a guide on how to create tables using wiki markup which can be simpler and cleaner to use than html. --Daduzi ^talk 09:03, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Table formatting (Don't do this)"

What is the preferred wiki way (if any) for "named lists". I basically want to have something which looks like this (where G1, G2, G3 could for example be the standard names for specific axioms in mathematics):

G1.	Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
G2.	Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
G3.	Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

This was created with a two-column table, which appears to be recommended against on Wikipedia:When to use tables. Something similar to this can be done with a definition list, like this:

G1.: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
G2.: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
G3.: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

But this looks ugly if the "defined terms" are very short and also conceals the enumeration character of the list.

The recommended way on this Wikipedia appears to be to use bulletted lists, like this:

G1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
G2. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
G3. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

But this again looks ugly to me. — Tobias Bergemann 10:37, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tables defaulting to white

Does anyone know why tables are now defaulting to white if you don't declare a style="background-color:#xxxxxx"? It has made me had to fix a lot of problems on my userpage! I much prefer the old behaviour where tables not having the code style="background-color:#xxxxxx" default to transparent. --tgheretford (talk) 11:10, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Make Table" template

Hey guys, I made a template the other day to prompt where a table needs to be made when you can't be stuffed. the template is {{make table}}. Hope you like it. Hope you use it. It adds to a category, so if you feel like creating tables, you can check out the category and create for any that are there (there's none as I type this, mind you, since the category and the template are both new). --linca ^linca 15:19, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cell alignment

Is there any policy against the use of the "style=text-align:center" tag? This article does not necessarily imply that (I believe only the use of standard HTML tags such as , etc, is discouraged. -- Ishikawa Minoru 21:05, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Duplicate sortable tables

Now that sortable tables are possible, is there any reason not to encourage their use to the greatest extent possible? Are there many users who will have JavaScript disabled, or worse, not available? If that is an issue, it should be mentioned in the guidelines. If it is not an issue, then we should aggressively merge most instances of duplicate tables sorted by different characteristics, such as

I was going to add these to Wikipedia:Proposed mergers but I thought I'd check here first. jnestorius^(talk) 12:45, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] About to fix shortcuts

This page was moved from How to use tables to When to use tables, and How to use tables became a kind of signpost or disambiguation page, but the shortcuts weren't fixed: at the moment, WP:HTUT still redirects here, there's no WP:WTUT, and WP:TABLE and WP:Table redirect to two different pages. I'm about to fix all that, let me know if I miss anything that needs doing. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:48, 10 March 2008 (UTC)