Search code examples
markdownjupyter

Tables in Markdown (in Jupyter)

A super basic question: why is the following not rendering in Markdown - which happens to be in a jupyter notebook

Raw code

### Results

| --- | --- | --- |
| Stretch/Untouched | ProbDistribution | Accuracy |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Stretched | Gaussian | .843 |

Code as it looks in jupyter in edit mode

enter image description here

Rendering in jupyter

enter image description here

So the table did not render properly

Update I did some twiddling and now it renders.. but still uncertain why the original code did not work

enter image description here

Solution

  • The first row of the table defines the headers, then the next row defines the alignment of each column. You duplicated the alignment at the top of the table and where it's actually supposed to go.

    The right Markdown should simply be what you have in your syntax, but remove the first row:

    | Stretch/Untouched | ProbDistribution | Accuracy |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Stretched | Gaussian | .843 |

    The --- in between the column definitions | | mean that the column is unjustified. In standard Markdown, this would align to the left of the column but in Jupyter notebook, it appears to align to the right instead.

    With that, I get this table:

    enter image description here

    If you'd like to left align or centre align, you can use :- and :-: respectively. Depending on what Jupyter notebook environment you're using, you will need to use -: to right align.

    | Stretch/Untouched | ProbDistribution | Accuracy |
| :- | -: | :-: |
| Stretched | Gaussian | .843

    The first column will be left-aligned, the centre column is right-aligned and the last column is centre aligned. Interestingly using Google Colab, --- left aligns the text:

    enter image description here

    Is the alignment not working as expected in your Jupyter notebook?

    This section is now outdated - the alignment should work as of this date (February 9th, 2022). See the edit below.

    The alignment syntax that I've mentioned above, unfortunately, does not work as of this date (June 25th, 2020) when using local installations of the Jupyter notebook environment. This is because of a bug in the Jupyter source where the Markdown alignment is not taken into account and all of the text is right-aligned. See the Github issue here: https://github.com/jupyter/notebook/issues/3919. However, it does work using jupyterlab as well as on Google Colab.

    Edit - February 9th, 2022

    Jupyter notebook versions from 6.0.0 onwards should contain the fix. If the alignment isn't working, please ensure that you upgrade your version of Jupyter notebook and try again.

    pip install --upgrade notebook