What does the aligner do?

It pads every cell to the column's widest value and aligns the pipe characters so the raw Markdown table is visually neat.

Can I set per-column alignment?

Yes. Set left, center, or right alignment per column — colons are added to the separator row accordingly.

Does the rendered output change?

No. Padding only affects the raw source. Renderers strip the extra spaces, so the visible table looks the same.

Is the table uploaded?

No. Alignment is done in your browser locally.

pads cells · aligns pipes · respects :--, --:, :--: column markers

Align Markdown tables

Pad cells to consistent widths, line up every pipe, and preserve per-column left / centre / right alignment markers. Produces clean raw tables.

Markdown → Aligned

Input

108 B

5 lines

Output

144 B

5 lines

Status

ready

live

Ratio

1.33×

out/in

input · markdown table

output · aligned

| name       | qty | price |
| ---------- | --: | :---: |
| pear       |   3 | 1.20  |
| banana     |  12 | 0.40  |
| watermelon |   1 | 8.99  |

Quick Start

How to align a Markdown table

Parses the header, alignment row, and body. Computes each column's width and pads cells. Preserves left / centre / right markers from the separator row.

01
Paste a table
Any GFM-style pipe table works.
Parsing runs through marked with GFM extensions enabled — tables, task lists, strikethrough, and fenced code blocks all match GitHub’s rendering.
inputGFMmarkedCommonMarklive
input · markdowntable · GFM
```
| a | b |
```
loaded · GFMGFM · ready
02
Detect alignment
Reads :--, --:, :--: from the second row.
Soft-break behaviour is configurable: by default a single newline becomes a space (CommonMark), toggle on for chat-style <br> insertion.
alignsoft-breaksoptionsconfiglive
fix · optionsl/c/r · live
```
l c r
```
options applied · livelive
03
Pad + align
Pads cells so every pipe lines up vertically.
The preview is scoped under a .mde class so its CSS doesn’t bleed into the rest of the page. Output HTML is whitespace-controlled for clean diffs.
padpreviewscoped CSSrenderstable
out · renderedmd · ready
```
| a    | b |
```
rendered · liverendered
04
Copy back
Drop the cleaned table into your docs.
Export covers both raw Markdown and rendered HTML; downloads stream as text/markdown or text/html via Blob + object URL.
exportclipboard.md.htmlblob
OK · exportedmd · done
```
shipped
```
shipped · ready to shipsuccess

Pro tips

Author Markdown that renders everywhere

GFM is the safe default

GitHub-Flavored Markdown is the de-facto baseline (tables, task lists, strikethrough). CommonMark is stricter but ubiquitous as a fallback.

Soft-break behaviour varies

A single newline is a space in CommonMark, a <br> in GFM. Toggle soft breaks when source matters.

Escape inside code fences

Backticks inside fenced blocks need a longer fence — three becomes four. Use ~~~ if your content has many backticks.

Anchors are slugified

GitHub lowercases, strips punctuation, and joins with hyphens. Duplicate headings get -1, -2 suffixes.

Tables need a header row

The dash row sets alignment (:---, :-:, ---:). Use Table Aligner for diff-friendly columns.

Front matter is YAML

Triple-dash blocks at the top of files are parsed by static-site generators. Use the Front-Matter Validator to catch syntax errors.

Use Cases

When to align tables

Clean raw Markdown for review-friendly diffs.

Code review

Make table diffs reviewable instead of noisy. Render path uses marked with GFM extensions enabled (tables, task lists, strikethrough, autolinks), so what you preview matches what GitHub publishes bit-for-bit. Soft-break behaviour is configurable for chat-style vs prose Markdown.

GFM-compliant

README polish

Tighten READMEs before publishing. Pairs cleanly with the Markdown Cheatsheet for syntax you can't quite remember — callout blocks, footnotes, definition lists. Output stays diff-friendly so style-only changes don't drown out real edits in PRs.

GitHub-perfect

Auto-generated tables

Clean up tool-generated tables to one style. Cross-platform safe: anchors, code fences, and tables behave identically on GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Gitea. Heading-anchor slugs follow GitHub's lowercase-and-hyphenate rules so deep links survive a docs migration.

diff-friendly

Doc site source

Keep table source readable for contributors. No server roundtrip — perfect for proprietary content you can't paste into a public tool. The full marked + GFM bundle ships with the page, so it works offline once loaded.

render-stable

Migration

Normalize tables across a repo when standards change. Front matter (YAML / TOML / JSON) passes through unchanged so static-site pipelines (Jekyll, Hugo, Astro, Eleventy) read it correctly. Pair with the Front-Matter Validator to catch syntax errors before deploy.

cross-platform

Cross-renderer safety

Avoid edge cases in stricter Markdown renderers. Output is reproducible: identical input always produces identical Markdown, so doc-generation scripts can rely on it for snapshot tests and embedded into release workflows.

SEO-friendly

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Does it preserve column alignment?

Yes — left, centre, and right markers (:--, --:, :--:) are detected and re-emitted.

What about rows with too few cells?

Shorter rows are padded with empty cells to match the header column count.

Will it touch non-table text?

No — but the tool expects the input to be a single table. Paste only the table block.

Are inline pipes escaped?

No special handling — escape with backslash before pasting if your cells contain literal pipes.

Is anything uploaded?

No. Alignment runs locally in your browser.

Suggest a tool

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