extracting-tables

<!-- AI-RULEZ :: GENERATED FILE — DO NOT EDIT Content-Hash: blake3:5597559a9133a3ac5068186a37ec61e7dcdac7881ee4a8077c8efd446e382be1 Source-Hash: blake3:b863a9279a8e31251a475dd8c895529ec38eec6b6506af4fe5c874832e9a48a6 Schema-Version: v1 --> # Extracting tables Use this when the user wants tabular data out of HTML — pricing tables, data grids, spec sheets. html-to-markdown parses `<table>` elements into two surfaces at once: inline GFM Markdown tables in the `content` stream, and a structured `tables` array in the JSON output. ## Two surfaces ```bash # Inline GFM tables appear in the Markdown body html-to-markdown input.html # Structured table data appears under result.tables (JSON) html-to-markdown --json input.html | jq '.tables' ``` - **Markdown tables in `content`** — `| col | col |` blocks, good for LLM ingestion and human reading. - **Structured `tables` array** — each entry has a `markdown` field (pre-rendered) and a `grid` of structured cells (rows × cols). Use this when downstream code needs exact cell access. Both are populated from the same parse; you do not need a flag to enable table parsing. ## Extraction-only When you only care about tables (not the Markdown body): ```bash html-to-markdown --json --no-content input.html | jq '.tables' ``` ## Inspecting tables ```bash # How many tables, and the row count of each html-to-markdown --json input.html \ | jq '.tables | to_entries | map({index: .key, rows: .value.grid.rows, cols: .value.grid.cols})' # Just the rendered markdown of the first table html-to-markdown --json input.html | jq -r '.tables[0].markdown' ``` ## Line breaks in cells By default `<br>` inside a cell is converted to a space. Keep hard breaks: ```bash html-to-markdown input.html --br-in-tables ``` ## Programmatic access ```python from html_to_markdown import convert result = convert(html) for table in result.tables: print(table.markdown) # rendered GFM markdown print(table.grid.cells[0].content) # first cell (grid is a TableGrid) ``` ```typescript import { convert } from "@xberg-io/html-to-markdown"; // Node's convert() returns a ConversionResult object directly. const result = convert(html); for (const table of result.tables ?? []) { console.log(table.markdown); // rendered table // table.grid is a TableGrid: { rows, cols, cells: GridCell[] } } ``` ## Notes and limits - **Nested tables** are flattened — the inner table is rendered inline within the parent cell. - **Merged / spanning cells** are reconstructed positionally; the span itself is not preserved as separate metadata. - **Malformed tables** still parse on a best-effort basis; check `result.warnings` (or `--show-warnings`) for non-fatal issues. See `../html-to-markdown/references/cli-reference.md` (Tables section) for the full flag set.