|) to separate columns and hyphens (-) in the second row to create the header separator.
Basic Table
| Name | Role | Team |
| -------- | --------- | -------- |
| Alice | Engineer | Backend |
| Bob | Designer | Product |The second row (hyphens) separates the header from the body. Every column needs at least one hyphen.
Column Alignment
Control alignment with colons in the separator row:
| Left | Center | Right |
| :------- | :-------: | -------: |
| text | text | text |
:---— left align:---:— center align---:— right align
Formatting Inside Tables
You can use inline markdown inside table cells:
| Feature | Status |
| -------- | --------------- |
| Bold | Supported |
| Code | inline |
Don't Want to Write Tables by Hand?
Use the free Markdown Table Generator — add rows and columns visually, then copy the finished markdown.
Common Mistakes
Tables need the header separator row — a table without hyphens in row 2 won't render. Also, if your cell content contains a pipe character |, escape it with | or it'll break the table structure.
Platform Support
Tables are a GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) extension. They work on GitHub, GitLab, Notion, Obsidian, and most modern editors. They do not work in plain CommonMark.
Full reference: Markdown Tables.
Ready to put this into practice? Paste your markdown into the free MarkdownTools PDF exporter or HTML converter — no signup required.