Tables are used to show some data in a two-dimensional fashion. In zettelmarkup, tables are not specified explicitly, but by entering table rows. Therefore, a table can be seen as a sequence of table rows. A table row is nothing but a sequence of table cells. The length of a table is the number of table rows, the width of a table is the maximum length of its rows.
The first cell of a row must begin with the vertical bar character (|, U+007C) at the first position of a line. The other cells of a row begin with the same vertical bar character at later positions in that line. A cell is delimited by the vertical bar character of the next cell or by the end of the current line. A vertical bar character as the last character of a line will not result in a table cell. It will be ignored. Inside a cell, you can specify any inline elements.
For example:
| a1 | a2 | a3|
| b1 | b2 | b3
| c1 | c2
will be rendered in HTML as:
a1 a2 a3
b1 b2 b3
c1 c2 
Header row
If any cell in the first row of a table contains an equal sing character (=, U+003D) as the very first character, then this first row will be interpreted as a table header row.
For example:
| a1 | a2 |= a3|
| b1 | b2 | b3
| c1 | c2
will be rendered in HTML as:
a1 a2 a3
b1 b2 b3
c1 c2 
Column alignment
Inside a header row, you can specify the alignment of each header cell by a given character as the last character of a cell. The alignment of a header cell determines the alignment of every cell in the same column. The following characters specify the alignment:
the colon character (:, U+003A) forces a centered alignment,
the less-than sign character (<, U+0060) specifies an alignment to the left,
the greater-than sign character (>, U+0062) will produce right aligned cells.
If no alignment character is given, a default alignment is used.
For example:
|=Left<|Right>|Center:|Default
|123456|123456|123456|123456|
|123|123|123|123
will be rendered in HTML as:
Left Right Center Default
123456 123456 123456 123456
123 123 123 123
Cell alignment
To specify the alignment of an individual cell, you can enter these characters for alignment as the first character of that cell.
For example:
|=Left<|Right>|Center:|Default
|>R|:C|<L
|123456|123456|123456|123456|
|123|123|123|123
will be rendered in HTML as:
Left Right Center Default
R C L 
123456 123456 123456 123456
123 123 123 123
Rows to be ignored
A line that begins with the sequence |% (vertical bar character (|, U+007C), followed by a percent sign character (“%”, U+0025)) will be ignored. For example, this allows to specify a horizontal rule that is not rendered. Such tables are emitted by some commands of the administrator console. For example, the command get-config box will emit:
|=Key        | Value  | Description
|%-----------+--------+---------------------------
| defdirtype | notify | Default directory box type
This is rendered in HTML as:
Key Value Description
defdirtype notify Default directory box type