README.rst

CSV Tables in Markdown — Pandoc Filter for CSV Tables

Date:	May 20, 2019

Contents

• pantable
  • Example
  • Install and Use
  • Syntax
• pantable2csv
• Related Filters

The pantable package comes with 2 pandoc filters, pantable.py and pantable2csv.py. pantable is the main filter, introducing a syntax to include CSV table in markdown source. pantable2csv complements pantable, is the inverse of pantable, which convert native pandoc tables into the CSV table format defined by pantable.

Some example uses are:

1. You already have tables in CSV format.
2. You feel that directly editing markdown table is troublesome. You want a spreadsheet interface to edit, but want to convert it to native pandoc table for higher readability. And this process might go back and forth.
3. You want lower-level control on the table and column widths.
4. You want to use all table features supported by the pandoc’s internal AST table format, which is not possible in markdown for pandoc <= 1.18. [1]

pantable

This allows CSV tables, optionally containing markdown syntax (disabled by default), to be put in markdown as a fenced code blocks.

Example

Also see the README in GitHub Pages. There’s a LaTeX output too.

```table
---
caption: '*Awesome* **Markdown** Table'
alignment: RC
table-width: 2/3
markdown: True
---
First row,defaulted to be header row,can be disabled
1,cell can contain **markdown**,"It can be aribrary block element:

- following standard markdown syntax
- like this"
2,"Any markdown syntax, e.g.",$$E = mc^2$$
```

becomes

AwesomeMarkdown Table

Fir st row	defaulted to be header row	can be disabled
1	cell can contain markdown	It can be aribrary block element: following standard markdown syntax like this
2	Any markdown syntax, e.g.	E = mc^2

(The equation might not work if you view this on PyPI.)

Install and Use

Install:

pip install -U pantable

Use:

pandoc -F pantable -o README.html README.md

Syntax

Fenced code blocks is used, with a class table. See [Example].

Optionally, YAML metadata block can be used within the fenced code block, following standard pandoc YAML metadata block syntax. 7 metadata keys are recognized:

caption

the caption of the table. If omitted, no caption will be inserted. Default: disabled.

alignment

a string of characters among L,R,C,D, case-insensitive, corresponds to Left-aligned, Right-aligned, Center-aligned, Default-aligned respectively. e.g. LCRD for a table with 4 columns. Default: DDD...

width

a list of relative width corresponding to the width of each columns. e.g.

- width
    - 0.1
    - 0.2
    - 0.3
    - 0.4

Default: auto calculated from the length of each line in table cells.

table-width

the relative width of the table (e.g. relative to \linewidth). default: 1.0

header

If it has a header row or not. True/False/yes/NO are accepted, case-insensitive. default: True

markdown

If CSV table cell contains markdown syntax or not. Same as above. Default: False

include

the path to an CSV file, can be relative/absolute. If non-empty, override the CSV in the CodeBlock. default: None

include-encoding

if specified, the file from include will be decoded according to this encoding, else assumed to be UTF-8.

csv-kwargs

If specified, should be a dictionary passed to csv.reader as options. e.g.

---
csv-kwargs:
  dialect: unix
  key: value...
...

pipe_tables

If True, a pipe table will be constructed directly in markdown syntax instead of via AST. markdown is implied to be True. header will be overridden as true because pipe_tables must has header in pandoc.

This trades correctness for speed. It won’t be correct if any of the cell is multiline for example, resulting in an invalid pipe table. However, it is much faster comparing to previous markdown: True case because previously per cell a subprocess to execute pandoc the parse the markdown to AST is needed.

grid_tables

If True, a grid table will be constructed directly in markdown syntax instead of via AST. markdown is implied to be True. header can be used together with this.

This trades correctness for speed. This should be more robust than pipe_tables since the grid_tables syntax supports everything the pandoc AST supports. This however depends on an external dependency. Install it by either pip install terminaltables or conda install terminaltables.

raw_markdown

If True, force output the table as a pipe table (which is tab-delimited.) This is sometimes useful if pandoc is very stubborn to not emit a pipe table even if markdown-grid_tables... is used. Note that this should only be used if the output format is markdown.

When the metadata keys is invalid, the default will be used instead. Note that width and table-width accept fractions as well.

pantable2csv

This one is the inverse of pantable, a panflute filter to convert any native pandoc tables into the CSV table format used by pantable.

Effectively, pantable forms a “CSV Reader”, and pantable2csv forms a “CSV Writer”. It allows you to convert back and forth between these 2 formats.

For example, in the markdown source:

+--------+---------------------+--------------------------+
| First  | defaulted to be     | can be disabled          |
| row    | header row          |                          |
+========+=====================+==========================+
| 1      | cell can contain    | It can be aribrary block |
|        | **markdown**        | element:                 |
|        |                     |                          |
|        |                     | -   following standard   |
|        |                     |     markdown syntax      |
|        |                     | -   like this            |
+--------+---------------------+--------------------------+
| 2      | Any markdown        | $$E = mc^2$$             |
|        | syntax, e.g.        |                          |
+--------+---------------------+--------------------------+

: *Awesome* **Markdown** Table

running pandoc -F pantable2csv -o output.md input.md, it becomes

``` {.table}
---
alignment: DDD
caption: '*Awesome* **Markdown** Table'
header: true
markdown: true
table-width: 0.8055555555555556
width: [0.125, 0.3055555555555556, 0.375]
---
First row,defaulted to be header row,can be disabled
1,cell can contain **markdown**,"It can be aribrary block element:

-   following standard markdown syntax
-   like this
"
2,"Any markdown syntax, e.g.",$$E = mc^2$$
```

Related Filters

The followings are pandoc filters written in Haskell that provide similar functionality. This filter is born after testing with theirs.

• baig/pandoc-csv2table: A Pandoc filter that renders CSV as Pandoc Markdown Tables.
• mb21/pandoc-placetable: Pandoc filter to include CSV data (from file or URL)
• sergiocorreia/panflute/csv-tables.py

	pandoc-csv2tabl e	pandoc- placeta ble	panflute example	pantable
cap tio n	caption	caption	title	caption
ali gns	aligns = LRCD	aligns = LRCD		aligns = LRCD
wid th		widths = "0.5 0.2 0.3 "		width: [0.5, 0.2, 0.3 ]
tab le- wid th				table-width: 1.0
hea der	header = yes | no	header = yes | no	has_head er: True False	header: True | False | yes | NO
mar kdo wn		inlinem arkdown		markdown: True | Fals e | yes | NO
sou rce	source	file	source	include
oth ers	type = simple | multiline | gr id | pipe
		delimit er
		quotech ar
		id (wra pped by
Not es				width are auto-calcul ated when width is no t specified

[1]	In pandoc 1.19, grid-tables is improved to support all features available to the AST too.