Help:Introduction to tables with Wiki Markup/2
Introduction to tables
How and why
Editing tables
The basics
Expanding tables
Adding rows and columns
Summary
Review of what you've learned
When you use the 
toolbar button to insert a table, it actually inserts markup text into the article for you to edit. There are two common ways to lay out this markup that you may see around Wikipedia
Data is arranged like a table
This is useful when there aren't too many columns and the cell contents are short (e.g. just numbers). This is the markup layout that the 
button will create.
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Caption
|-
! Header C1 !! Header C2 !! Header C3
|-
| R1C1 || R1C2 || R1C3
|-
| R2C1 || R2C2 || R2C3
|}
Cells are arranged vertically
With lots of columns, or cells with long contents, putting each cell on a new line can improve readability of the markup.
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Caption
|-
! Header C1
! Header C2
! Header C3
|-
| R1C1
| R1C2
| R1C3
|-
| R2C1
| R2C2
| R2C3
|}
Both of the above examples look the same in an article.
| Header C1 | Header C2 | Header C3 |
|---|---|---|
| R1C1 | R1C2 | R1C3 |
| R2C1 | R2C2 | R2C3 |
Whether you've just inserted a new table, or are editing an existing one, changing the text in these cells determines what table displays in the article.
How the individual table elements works
If you want more control over tables, you'll want to know how the formatting actually works. A table actually just consists of the following basic elements:
{|
|
start | Besides beginning the table, this is also where the table's class is defined – for example, class="wikitable". A table's "class" applies standard Wikipedia formatting to that table. The two most commonly used classes are "wikitable" and "wikitable sortable"; the latter allows the reader to sort the table by clicking on the header cell of any column.
|
|---|---|---|
|+
|
caption | Required for accessibility purposes on data tables, and placed only between the table start and the first table row. |
!
|
header cell | Optional. Each header cell starts with a new line and a single exclamation mark (!), or several header cells can be placed consecutively on the same line, separated by double exclamation marks (!!).
|
|-
|
new row | To begin a new row of cells, use a single vertical bar (|) and a hyphen (-).
|
|
|
new cell in row |
To add a new cell in a row, start each new cell with a new line and a single vertical bar (|), or several cells can be placed consecutively on the same line, separated by double vertical bars (||).
|
|}
|
end | To end the table, use a single vertical bar (|) and a left facing curly brace (}) alone on a new line.
|
Blank spaces at the beginning and end of a cell are ignored. The table's "class" applies a standard set of Wikipedia formatting to it. The two most commonly used classes are "wikitable" and "wikitable sortable".
