Tables

Etonym shows Markdown tables as a grid and lets you edit one cell at a time. The file stays an ordinary Markdown table that GitHub and GitLab show too.

Insert a table

Choose Insert table on the toolbar and pick a size on the grid, or move with the arrow keys and press Enter. The default is 3 × 3. Etonym inserts an empty table with a header row.

To start from a spreadsheet, copy the cells and paste them into the note. Their bold, italic and strikethrough come along as Markdown. After a paste the cursor waits on the blank line below the table, so the next paste makes a new table.

A table inserted or pasted at the end of a note gets a blank line after it.

Edit cells

Click a cell to edit it. The cell shows its Markdown while you edit; the rest of the table stays a grid.

Key	Does
Tab / Shift+Tab	Next / previous cell, with its text selected so typing replaces it. Tab in the last cell adds a row.
Enter / Shift+Enter	Line break in the cell (<br>)
Alt+↑ / Alt+↓	Add a row above / below and move to the same column in it
Home / End	Start / end of the current line in the cell
← / →	At the start or end of the cell’s text, previous / next cell. With the cell’s text selected, its start / end.
↑ / ↓	From the first or last line of the cell, the cell above / below, keeping the cursor’s place along the line
Esc	Leave the table. ↑ on the header row and ↓ on the last row leave it too.

Bold, italic, strikethrough, code and links show formatted in cells. Ctrl+click a link in a cell to open it, as elsewhere in the note. A | you type is saved as \|. Backspace and Delete remove a line break as one piece.

Only the cell you change is written. Etonym does not realign the other cells, so a Git diff shows just your change.

Rows, columns and alignment

While the cursor is in a cell, the toolbar shows a Table group. The same commands are in the right-click menu (Table actions, also Shift+F10) and, while the cursor is in a cell, in the command palette:

• Insert row above (Alt+↑), Insert row below (Alt+↓), Insert column left, Insert column right
• Align column left, Align column center, Align column right, which write :---, :---: and ---:
• Toggle header row on the toolbar, shown as Add header row or Remove header row in the menu
• Delete row, Delete column, Delete table

A Markdown table always has a header row, so you cannot delete it or insert a row above it. Remove header row turns the first row into data and adds an empty header row. Merged cells are not available.

Copy and paste cells

Drag across cells, hold Shift and click another cell, or hold Shift with the arrow keys, to select a range.

• Ctrl+C copies the range so it pastes into a spreadsheet or a word processor as cells, with their bold, italic and strikethrough. A range that starts at the header row pastes it as a header row, and line breaks stay inside their cell.
• Ctrl+X cuts it, and Delete clears it. Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y undo and redo either.
• Ctrl+A in a cell selects every cell of the table.
• Pasting cells from a spreadsheet into a cell, or over a selected range, fills the table from that cell or the range’s top-left cell and adds rows and columns as needed. Bold, italic and strikethrough come along.

Tables that show as text

A table stays a grid while you edit it when its divider row has as many columns as the header and no row has more cells than the header. A table that breaks these rules is drawn as a grid only away from the cursor, and shows its Markdown on the cursor line. Tables inside a list or a quote stay as text.