wikipedia-wikitables

name	wikipedia-wikitables
description	Create, parse, style, and fix MediaWiki wikitable syntax — delimiters, header/data cells, CSS classes, inline styling, rowspan/colspan, accessibility attributes, sortable and collapsible tables, and programmatic table generation from data
depends_on	["wikimedia-wikitext"]
license	MIT
compatibility	opencode
skill_discovery_hints	[{"keywords":["wikitable","table","sortable","colspan","rowspan","data table","table syntax"]},{"keywords":["table generation","CSV to wikitable","wikitable styling","mw-collapsible"]}]
last_verified	"2026-06-10T00:00:00.000Z"

⚠️ Prerequisite: This skill assumes basic familiarity with wikitext templates. See wikipedia-templates for template syntax, and wikimedia-wikitext for AST parsing with mwparserfromhell.

⚠️ User-Agent required: API calls to fetch wikitext or render tables need a descriptive User-Agent header. See the wikimedia-api-access skill for the correct format.

---

Reference: Wikitable Building Blocks

MediaWiki tables use a pipe-based syntax inspired by HTML table markup. Every table has four structural delimiters:

Symbol	Meaning	Opens/Closes	HTML equivalent
{|	Table open	Start of table	<table>
|}	Table close	End of table	</table>
|-	Row separator	New row	<tr>
|	Data cell	Cell content	<td>
!	Header cell	Header content	<th>
|+	Caption	Table caption	<caption>

Minimal Complete Table

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Annual revenue
! Year
! Revenue
|-
| 2020
| $1.2M
|-
| 2021
| $1.8M
|}

This renders as a single row of headers (!) followed by two data rows (|).

Anatomy of a Cell

A cell can have attributes (class, style, scope, colspan, rowspan) before the content. The pipe separates attributes from the value:

| style="text-align: center;" | centered content
! scope="col" style="text-align: right;" | Header
| rowspan="2" | spans two rows

The general pattern is:

| [attribute1] [attribute2] ... | cell content

Multiple attributes on the same cell are space-separated between the opening pipe and the final | that precedes the content.

---

SOP: Class-Based Styling

MediaWiki's common.css ships with pre-defined table classes. You apply them on the table-open line:

{| class="wikitable"

Available Classes

Class	Effect	Notes
wikitable	Standard styling: light gray header, borders, striped rows	The default for most tables
sortable	Adds clickable column headers for sorting	Must be combined with wikitable or another base class
mw-collapsible	Adds a [show]/[hide] toggle	Used in navboxes and data tables
mw-collapsed	Starts collapsed (requires mw-collapsible)	Content hidden by default
mw-datatable	Alternating row colors, hover highlight	Used by software/database tables
plainlinks	Removes external link icons inside the table	Useful in infobox-style tables

Common Combinations

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Name
! Score
!
|-
| Alice
| 95
|}

{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
! Hidden by default, click to expand
|-
| Revealed content
|}

Row-Level Classes

Classes can also go on the row separator:

|- class="sortbottom"
| Total
| $3.0M

class="sortbottom" pins a summary row to the bottom of a sortable table, preventing it from being sorted with the data rows.

---

SOP: Inline CSS Styling

For fine-grained control beyond what the built-in classes provide, use inline style= attributes at the table, row, or cell level.

Table-Level Styles

{| class="wikitable" style="width: 100%; background-color: #f8f9fa;"

Style	Effect	When to Use
width: 100%;	Full-width table	Dashboard/report tables
width: auto;	Shrink to content	Small lookup tables
background-color: #f8f9fa;	Light gray background	Subtle table backdrop
border-collapse: collapse;	Single borders instead of double	(Default for wikitable)
margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;	Center the table on the page	Standalone tables
font-size: 90%;	Slightly smaller text	Sidebar/compact tables

Row-Level Styles

|- style="background-color: #efe;"
| Highlighted row

Useful for section breaks, totals, or status indicators (e.g. green for "approved", red for "fails").

Cell-Level Styles

| style="text-align: center;" | Centered
| style="text-align: right; font-weight: bold;" | Right-aligned bold
! style="text-align: left; background-color: #eaecf0;" | Left header

Text Alignment

Style	Effect
text-align: left;	Left-align content
text-align: center;	Center content
text-align: right;	Right-align content
text-align: justify;	Justified text
vertical-align: top;	Align to top of cell
vertical-align: middle;	Vertically center
vertical-align: bottom;	Align to bottom of cell

Background Colors

! scope="col" style="background-color: #cfe3ff;" | Blue header
|- style="background-color: #ffffcc;"
| Yellow row
| style="background-color: #fee;" | Pink cell

Borders and Spacing

{| style="border: 2px solid #a3bfb1;"
|- style="border-bottom: 3px solid #a3bfb1;"
| style="border-right: 1px dashed #ccc;" | Content
|}

{| style="cellpadding: 10px;"
|- style="padding: 8px;"
| Spacious cell
|}

Legacy HTML Attributes (avoid in new tables)

Older tables use HTML attributes like align=, valign=, bgcolor=. These still render but are deprecated in HTML5. Prefer CSS style=:

Legacy	Modern CSS equivalent
align="center"	style="text-align: center;"
valign="top"	style="vertical-align: top;"
bgcolor="#eee"	style="background-color: #eee;"
width="500"	style="width: 500px;"
border="1"	style="border: 1px solid #a2a9b1;"

Shorthand Multi-Value Attributes

You can combine multiple styles on one cell:

| style="text-align: right; background-color: #fdd; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 90%;" | 42

---

SOP: Accessibility with scope

For screen readers, header cells must specify which cells they govern:

! scope="col" | Column header
! scope="col" | Another header
! scope="row" | Row header

scope value	Meaning
scope="col"	Header applies to the column below it
scope="row"	Header applies to the row beside it
scope="colgroup"	Header applies to a group of columns
scope="rowgroup"	Header applies to a group of rows

A table with class="wikitable" and proper scope attributes passes WCAG accessibility requirements. A table with no scope does not.

---

SOP: Column Spans and Row Spans

! colspan="2" | Merged header spanning two columns
| rowspan="3" | Content spans three rows
| colspan="2" rowspan="2" | Spans both

• colspan="N" — merge N columns horizontally
• rowspan="N" — merge N rows vertically
• Can be combined on the same cell
• Cells covered by a span are omitted (not written with empty | |)

Common Patterns

{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="2" | Merged header
! scope="col" | Single
|-
! scope="row" | Row header
| Data 1
| Data 2
|-
| rowspan="2" | Vertical span
| A
| B
|-
| C
| D
|}

---

SOP: Inline Cell Content

Cell values support any wikitext — templates, links, images, lists, even nested tables:

| [[Albert Einstein]] (born 1879)
| {{flag|France}}
| [[File:Example.jpg|50px]]
|
* Item one
* Item two
|
{| class="wikitable"
| Nested table
|}

---

SOP: Parsing Tables with mwparserfromhell

import mwparserfromhell

wikitext = """{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Name
! Score
! scope="col" | Rank
|-
| Alice
| 95
| style="text-align: center;" | 1st
|}"""

parsed = mwparserfromhell.parse(wikitext)
tables = parsed.filter_tags(matches=lambda t: str(t.tag) == "table")

for table in tables:
    print("Table:", table)
    # Extract attributes
    if table.has("class"):
        print("  Classes:", table.get("class").value)

For extracting structured data from tables, use the style and class attributes to identify header rows and data cells.

---

SOP: Generating Tables from Data (Python)

def dicts_to_wikitable(
    data: list[dict[str, str]],
    *,
    classes: str = "wikitable sortable",
    caption: str = "",
    alignment: str | None = None,
) -> str:
    """Convert a list of dicts to a MediaWiki wikitable string."""
    if not data:
        return ""

    headers = list(data[0].keys())
    style = f' style="text-align: {alignment};"' if alignment else ""
    lines: list[str] = []
    lines.append(f'{{| class="{classes}"{style}')
    if caption:
        lines.append(f"|+ {caption}")
    lines.append("! " + "\n! ".join(f'scope="col" | {h}' for h in headers))
    for row in data:
        lines.append("|-")
        for h in headers:
            val = row.get(h, "")
            # Auto-align numeric values to the right
            try:
                float(val.replace(",", "").replace("$", "").replace("%", ""))
                cell = f' style="text-align: right;" | {val}'
            except ValueError:
                cell = f"| {val}"
            lines.append(cell)
    lines.append("|}")
    return "\n".join(lines)


# Example
data = [
    {"Name": "Alice", "Score": "95"},
    {"Name": "Bob", "Score": "87"},
]
print(dicts_to_wikitable(data, caption="Scores"))

---

Reference: Styling Quick Reference

Color Palette (Wikimedia Standard)

These are the colors used by class="wikitable" and common in Wikipedia tables:

Color	Hex	Use
Table header background	#eaecf0	Default wikitable header
Table body background	#f8f9fa	Default wikitable body
Alternating row highlight	#fafafa	Hover/alternate shade
Border	#a2a9b1	Default table border
Green row (pass)	#d5fdf4	Positive signal
Yellow row (warning)	#fef6e7	Needs attention
Red row (fail/error)	#fee7e6	Negative signal
Blue header	#cfe3ff	Custom header color

Alignment Summary

Target	Inline Style	Class Alternative
Center the table on page	style="margin:0 auto;"	Not available as class
Left-align a column	style="text-align: left;"	Not available as class
Center a column	style="text-align: center;"	Not available as class
Right-align numeric column	style="text-align: right;"	Not available as class
Vertically center cells	style="vertical-align: middle;"	Not available as class
Pin a row to bottom	—	class="sortbottom"

---

Reference: When to Use Which Approach

Situation	Approach	Example
Standard data table	Class only	class="wikitable sortable"
Report with a color-coded row	Class + inline	class="wikitable", |- style="background: #fee;"
One-off alignment override	Inline cell style	| style="text-align: center;" | 42
Table for user scripts/gadgets	Class + accessible	class="wikitable" + scope="col" on all headers
Compact sidebar table	Inline table style	style="font-size: 90%; width: auto;"

---

Tooling

🔧 Wikitable to HTML Preview (scripts/wikitable-to-html.sh)

Convert a wikitable to rough HTML for visual verification:

echo '{| class="wikitable"|! A|! B|-|1|2|}' | ./scripts/wikitable-to-html.sh

🔧 Generate Table from CSV (scripts/generate-table.sh)

cat data.csv | ./scripts/generate-table.sh --caption "Scores" --classes "wikitable sortable"

🐍 Wikitable Tools (assets/wikitable_tools.py)

from assets.wikitable_tools import (
    dicts_to_wikitable,
    parse_wikitable,
    style_cell,
)

# Generate
table = dicts_to_wikitable(data, caption="Results", alignment="center")

# Parse
rows = parse_wikitable(wikitext)

# Style a single cell
styled = style_cell("42", align="right", bold=True, background="#efe")

🐍 Test Suite (assets/test_wikitable_tools.py)

python3 -m pytest assets/test_wikitable_tools.py -v

Tests cover: generation from dicts, parsing, styling, edge cases (empty tables, colspan, rowspan, nested tables, multi-word headers, numeric auto-alignment).

---

Cross-References

Related Skill	Why
wikimedia-wikitext	AST-based wikitext parsing — never parse tables with regex
wikipedia-templates	Table-generating templates and template-based table styling
wikipedia-page-anatomy	Tables as article body elements — structure and placement
wikimedia-api-access	User-Agent and API patterns