Forum:Tables need headers

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I've been noticing some errors with table creation, especially amongst those tables relying on {{prettytable}} for formatting. So let's run down some of the basics of table-making just so that we're all on the same page. Now that we have proper, uniform formatting for tables, it's important we all know how to use it.

The basic code

Making a table in wikicode is actually pretty easy. You just have to know what all the little symbols do:

Symbol	What it does
{|	starts a table
|}	ends a table
!	declares that this row will define column header(s)
||	declares the end of a cell
|	declares a new row

The symbol we need to examine is the exclamation point. It's really important that you understand the difference between using that and a pipe, or vertical lin. If you start the "title row" with a vertical line, you still get a table. But the resulting table will have no true header

For instance, I've been finding an awful lot of tables like this:

{| {{prettytable}}
| Writer || Director || Producer
|-
| Russell T Davies || Euros Lyn | Phil Collinson
|-
|}

This produces the following:

Writer	Director	Producer
Russell T Davies	Euros Lyn	Phil Collinson

Okay, that's a table, technically. But it's got no header. See how you can mouseover the first row just as easily as the second? That shouldn't be happening.

What you need to do, therefore, is to actually declare the writer/director/producer line as the table header. You do this by beginning that line with an exclamation mark, not a pipe. Here's the right way to make a table with wikicode:

{| {{prettytable}}
! Writer || Director || Producer
|-
| Russell T Davies || Euros Lyn || Phil Collinson
|-
|}

It's a tiny change. But notice the dramatic difference in the output:

Writer	Director	Producer
Russell T Davies	Euros Lyn	Phil Collinson

Notice that you can, if you wish, use multiple exclamation points:

Method A	Method B
You can start the line with an exclamation point and then separate each new header with double pipes like this: ! Writer || Director || Producer	Or you can put one header per line, and start each line with an exclamation point. It's the same thing. ! Writer !Director !Producer

czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  <span style="">05:51: Mon 14 May 2012