html-to-markdown-extracting-tables

<!-- AI-RULEZ :: GENERATED FILE — DO NOT EDIT Content-Hash: blake3:d581ed76f6325d95c7906b89a227dabe3598860edfd1a5b4a22e4fbbb085f140 Source-Hash: blake3:c9a47eeba8370e9be2e04b73b3e29c5d1c79284183f355f4e221e0cd45770389 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: inline GFM Markdown tables in the `content` stream, and a structured `tables` array when document structure extraction is enabled. ## Two surfaces ```bash # Inline GFM tables appear in the Markdown body html-to-markdown input.html # Structured table data appears under .tables in CLI JSON html-to-markdown --json --include-structure 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. Inline Markdown tables are rendered by default. Structured `tables` require `--include-structure` in the CLI, `include_document_structure=True` in Python, or `includeDocumentStructure: true` in Node.js. ## Extraction-only When you only care about tables (not the Markdown body): ```bash html-to-markdown --json --include-structure --no-content input.html | jq '.tables' ``` ## Inspecting tables ```bash # How many tables, and the row count of each html-to-markdown --json --include-structure 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 --include-structure 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, ConversionOptions html = "<table><tr><th>A</th><th>B</th></tr><tr><td>1</td><td>2</td></tr></table>" # result.tables is only populated when include_document_structure=True result = convert(html, ConversionOptions(include_document_structure=True)) 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, { includeDocumentStructure: true }); 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** preserve `row_span` and `col_span` on each grid cell. Inspect both cell positions and span dimensions when reconstructing a layout. - **Malformed tables** still parse on a best-effort basis; check `result.warnings` (or `--show-warnings`) for non-fatal issues. See `references/cli-reference.md` (Tables section) for the full flag set.