Word wrap in markdown tables

Word wrap or line wrap dows not work in markdown tables, as they are displayed in Obsidian. Editing these tables is difficult, as it requires a lot of scrolling. I added an example below to test it

Feature request: enable word wrap for markdown tables in obsidian as well

Example:

Zeitschriftenname Kurzbeschreibung
Applied Cognitive Psychology Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat
Cognition and Instruction Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat
Computers in Human Behavior Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat
28 Likes

This feature would be very helpful. Working with large tables that don’t have line wrap is quite annoying since I often lose my position and have to scroll back and forth.

I was a little surprised this feature isn’t there, since regular lines and lists line wrap properly.


Update: what makes single-line tables difficult to work with for me, is that the End keyboard key jumps to the end of the visible text, but not jumps to the actual end of the line.

So when you press End, the text-typing cursor doesn’t go to the line’s end. :confused:

4 Likes

yes +1. I have one column that’s gigantic and 2 others that are super tiny, cause they don’t wrap at the same length. I don’t think it’s an issue so much if I could adjust column lengths myself to whatever I want to give importance to. I prefer that over it automatically wrapping at a certain length.

One Note does this well. I think tables need to be a bit more robust overall.

3 Likes

+1

I also encountered problems when dealing with long strings in tables. Currently as a work-around I use Latex, although it feels too cumbersome.

It would also be nice to have the ability to control the columns’ size (Ability to resize columns in tables).

Maybe add an extension to markdown, such as:

|col 1;50%|col 2;10px|…

or in a comment before the table

or maybe as a code block “language”, like mermaid:

; format options
|col1|col2|...
4 Likes

I… did not know this was a problem until it was a problem. Hopefully this won’t be that hard to implement as a setting at some point. +1.

2 Likes

I agree. This is particularly useful when making literature review tables.

1 Like

Hi all,

I just registered to add my voice to this petition. I use tables very often in my notes and seeing my rows extend to the width of their content is really a dealbreaker for my workflow. Hopefully there’s a way to fix this behaviour via css or a future app update.

Cheers!

1 Like

My current workaround is: open the file in Typora if there are wide tables…

3 Likes

My temporary way is: using table website “https://www.tablesgenerator.com/” then I copy to Obsidian.

I posted a way for how to make tables wrap here. It’s not exactly what you’re after, but perhaps it helps someone.

2 Likes

+1

I consider this is a bug. But similar bugs thread about tables with long entries and wrapping problem got locked.

Anyways, as pointed out by others, long entries in tables are rather common. Definitions, translations, etc.

I would love this feature as well. I really need the possibility to wrap long term inside table cell. I installed the “Advanced table” tool plugin, that helped a lot to make table readable, but does not solve the wrapping problem. I tried CSS code as well, but the editor new or anciant, does not see individual cells. I tried to make table with html code, which works, but it erases every Obsidian’s features like wikilinks and mark-up editing, so advantages of using markdwon files disappears.

2 Likes

+1… and for the non-legacy editor as well… tables are uneditable in Obsidian mobile except the first fwe characters of each line, and on desktop almost impossible (unless I’m in a 3rd party editor, then it’s easy)

1 Like

I have been using Obsidian for a week and had a wonderful experience working with this tool. I ran into the same problem and decided to experiment a bit. I suppose I came up with a simple solution. I hope you will find it useful.

Use the <br> html tag which inserts a single line break. It is an empty tag which means that it has no end tag.

Input:

|column1| column2  |
|-      |-         |
|mytext mytext mytext| mytext mytext <br> mytext mytext <br> mytext|
|mytext  mytext| mytext <br> mytext  mytext mytext |

Outcome:

column1 column2
mytext mytext mytext mytext mytext
mytext mytext
mytext
mytext mytext mytext
mytext mytext mytext


Watch out and take care!

For me, table editing (especially for tables with lots of content) is one of the last remaining places where Typora is leaps and bounds ahead of Obsidian. I hope the table UX gets some attention from the amazing Obsidian developers

1 Like

I have never understood this feature request. What does it mean word wrap in in markdown tables?

Line wrapping doesn’t make sense because you are gonna get confused in which row of the table you are. Or do you want graphical representation of a table and edit cell by cell? In that case, cell-level line wrapping makes sense. If it’s latter case, please follow this FR https://forum.obsidian.md/t/live-preview-edit-table-cell-by-cell/34110.

Otherwise, please explain what you mean with this FR.

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