Menu of tables

Offline MediaWiki Code Editor

Menu of Tables (Which assistant do you need?)

A menu to choose the assistant suitable for your purpose.

A table is an arrangement of columns and rows that organizes and positions data. Tables can be created on Wikipedia pages using special wikitext syntax, and many different styles and tricks can be used to customize them.

A table is a complex list shown in a pattern of cells. Tables may be useful to show numerical data, comparative figures or sport results. These are also useful to show equivalent word in two or more languages, award results of other complex data. Before creating a table consider whether the information improves clarity organizing the data in rows and columns.

This menu give access to assistants based on different templates. Both assistants to build Tables with Regular Cells and Tables with Combined Cells are based on the wikitable class. The following are common traits that show those tables created with both types of assistants:

· Title (optional) in bold type

· Automatic adjustment of the size of the cells to the content.

· Column headings centered and in bold type.

· Cells with thin frames and light gray background (darker in the headings)

· Cell text vertical align middle.

The assistants let customize title alignment and cell text alignment. But if you know the sintax and prefer another alignment, you can modify later the configuration of the table generated by the assistants.

Which assistant do you need?

Regular tables with a few cells (up to 5 x 5) can be generated with any of the assistants and the result will be the same. But if you need such a table without column headings, you should better use the assistant for Tables with Combined Cells.

The main advantage of the assistant for Tables with combined cells is the possibility to merge cells to build complex tables. The following comparison table may help you to choose the most suitable assistant for your purposes.

Comparative table	Assistant for REGULAR CELLS	Assistant for COMBINED CELLS
Position of the table in the page	Customizable	Centered in the page without side text
Regular cells limit	10 columns × 50 rows	5 columns x 5 rows
Can merge cells	Never	Optional
Force cell width	YES	NO
Column headings	Always (not optional)	Optional
Row headings	Optional	Optional

The context help of the assistants include several recommendations to obtain the maximum benefit of them and to improve the aspect of your tables.

Nested tables

Although nested tables may cause accessibility issues and should be avoided whenever possible, may also be useful to build complex tables, like infoboxes.

Infoboxes emulated with tables

An infobox is a panel, usually in the top right of an article, next to the lead section (in the desktop view), or at the very top of an article (in mobile view), that summarizes key features of the page's subject. Infoboxes may also include an image, and/ or a map.

The assistant for Infoboxes emulated with tables makes possible to hand-code an infobox using table markup of the infobox class, instead of using an infobox template. Consider this alternative when you have not found a suitable infobox template to your purposes.

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