Support for merged cells in markdown?

[sodiumchl]

How can I render merged cells correctly? I use quarto render test.md --html but the merged cells are not merged.

An example below from
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46621765/can-i-merge-table-rows-in-markdown

|             |          Grouping           ||
First Header  | Second Header | Third Header |
 ------------ | :-----------: | -----------: |
Content       |          *Long Cell*        ||
Content       |   **Cell**    |         Cell |

New section   |     More      |         Data |
And more      | With an escaped '\|'         ||  
[Prototype table]

[rgaiacs]

Hi @sodiumchl and thanks for your interest in Quarto.

Quarto uses Pandoc to convert the .md file to .html. Pandoc supports many table formats, see https://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html#tables, but

Pandoc does not support grid tables with row spans or column spans.

[sodiumchl]

Pandoc does not support grid tables with row spans or column spans.

That's an unfortunate limitation. Is there any way to use a different md to html converter instead of pandoc, e.g., multimarkdown?

[rgaiacs]

If you use Quarto, you are lock with Pandoc. Pandoc can be extended with filters, see https://pandoc.org/filters.html but I'm not sure if you will be able to get merged cells using filters.

If you are only targeting HTML output, you should have a look at https://renkun-ken.github.io/formattable/.

[vtraag]

Perhaps this could use an update. From what I see now, grid tables, such as described in https://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html#tables are fully supported. For example, this example

+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
| Fruit         | Price         | Advantages         |
+===============+===============+====================+
| Bananas       | $1.34         | - built-in wrapper |
|               |               | - bright color     |
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+
| Oranges       | $2.10         | - cures scurvy     |
|               |               | - tasty            |
+---------------+---------------+--------------------+

renders perfectly using Quarto to

[rgaiacs]

Dear @vtraag, Thanks for your message. Your example has cells with a list. The question is a cell spanning multiple columns or rows (also called merged cells). The correct example from Pandoc documentation is

+---------------------+----------+
| Property            | Earth    |
+=============+=======+==========+
|             | min   | -89.2 °C |
| Temperature +-------+----------+
| 1961-1990   | mean  | 14 °C    |
|             +-------+----------+
|             | max   | 56.7 °C  |
+-------------+-------+----------+

[stanstrup]

the solution by @rgaiacs is broken by RStudio's visual mode.

[cderv]

broken by RStudio's visual mode.

Possibly an issue to report in RStudio IDE on how grid tables are supported in markdown input.

Edit: or directly at https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto which is the repo for the visual editor code source

[stanstrup]

If you copy in that code in source mode it works. But as soon as you switch to visual mode it "repairs" the table to have no spanned rows or columns.

[mcanouil]

that code

What code?

[stanstrup]

the code by @rgaiacs as I wrote:

+---------------------+----------+
| Property            | Earth    |
+=============+=======+==========+
|             | min   | -89.2 °C |
| Temperature +-------+----------+
| 1961-1990   | mean  | 14 °C    |
|             +-------+----------+
|             | max   | 56.7 °C  |
+-------------+-------+----------+

Put that in the editor in source mode. Switch to visual mode and back to source mode and it as "repaired" the spannning.

[mcanouil]

I don't think Visual Editor supports Grid table.
I suggest you look if this feature request was already reported and if not, open a new one with a fully reproducible example, the steps to reproduce the current behaviour and explain what you want/expect on the appropriate repository which is https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto.

[pmoreno-DTP]

Any update on this issue? I get the same problem and would love to have a fix.

[cderv]

I get the same problem and would love to have a fix.

What is your problem exactly ? What is the table you are trying to write ?
Does same problem relates to visual editor support ? or Quarto rendering ?

Thanks for the additional information

[pmoreno-DTP]

Here is a simple table with merged cells that I would like to replicate in Quarto using the visual editor support:

I need tables with merged cells, custom borders, background colors, and specific formatting, and they should work well in HTML, PDF, and Word outputs. Would using flextable be the best approach for this? Are there simpler or better alternatives I should consider? Any guidance would be appreciated.

[mcanouil]

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I'm not sure the Visual Editor is going to be a full editor like Excel or Word. I don't think that's the goal.

Quarto 1.9 brings native support to list-table which help make markdown table with merged cells.