Markdown table generator

A Markdown table is a header row, a delimiter row and any number of body rows. Pipes separate the cells; the outer pipes are optional but make the table easier to read.

| Plan | Price | Seats |
| :--- | ----: | :---: |
| Free |    $0 |   1   |
| Team |   $12 |  10   |

The spec needs only one hyphen per delimiter cell, while GitHub’s docs ask for at least three. The generator always writes three or more, so the table works in both. Padding the cells with spaces changes nothing in the rendered table; it only makes the source readable in a code review.

• Header and delimiter must have the same number of cells. If they differ, GitHub does not see a table at all and shows the raw pipes. Body rows are more forgiving: missing cells are left empty and extra cells are dropped.
• A pipe inside a cell must be escaped as \|, even inside a code span such as `a \| b`. An unescaped pipe starts a new cell.
• Cells hold inline content only. Bold, links, images and code work. Lists, code blocks and several paragraphs do not. For a line break, use <br>.
• No merged cells. There is no colspan or rowspan. Use an HTML table inside the Markdown file when you need them.
• Give the table its own block. A blank line before and after the table is accepted by every renderer and avoids it being read as part of a paragraph.

Python with pandas. to_markdown needs the tabulate package installed:

import pandas as pd

df = pd.read_csv("data.csv")
print(df.to_markdown(index=False))

Command line with pandoc, which reads CSV and writes GitHub-flavored Markdown:

pandoc -f csv -t gfm data.csv -o table.md

JavaScript, no library. Escape pipes and line breaks, then join:

const cell = v => String(v).replace(/\|/g, '\\|').replace(/\r?\n/g, '<br>');
function toMarkdownTable([head, ...rows]) {
  const line = r => `| ${r.map(cell).join(' | ')} |`;
  return [line(head), line(head.map(() => '---')), ...rows.map(line)].join('\n');
}

toMarkdownTable([['Name', 'Role'], ['Ada', 'Engineer']]);

Copying a range in Excel or Google Sheets puts tab-separated text on the clipboard, with quotes around cells that contain line breaks. The import box reads that, comma or semicolon CSV (as defined in RFC 4180), pipe-separated text and existing Markdown tables, and tells you which format it found. If rows have different lengths, it pads them and says how many.

Besides Markdown, the output can be an HTML table or CSV. To work with the data itself, try the CSV viewer or CSV to JSON converter. To render the finished table, paste it into the Markdown to HTML converter. Writing docs often? Browse documentation tools on DevHunt.