How to make tables

This page shows how to make tables in toolbox pages.

History

In the first 10 years of Dr Toolbox, it was not possible to insert tables (except as pictures), for several reasons:

the functions are very complex to correctly implement in a visual editor,
until recently, many desktop computers in the NHS only had obsolete browsers,
table editing is quite difficult on a touch-screen interface (without a mouse),
we couldn't imagine an easy to use markup for writers,
large tables are often difficult to read on a mobile device and to update (desktop and mobile),
most tabular information can be represented in a reasonable way with plain text or bulleted/numbered lists.

Nevertheless, in some cases editors feel that a table is required, and the extra effort for creating and maintaining it is acceptable. For these cases, it is now possible to use a markup that will be converted to an actual table when the page is saved.

Copy and paste a table

If you copy a table from a spreadsheet, a word document or a web page, and paste it into your Toolbox page, it should be formatted into the markup supported by Toolbox (see below).

Please review the "Markup" section below, you may need to manually edit the table, for example to remove empty lines or to fix the column alignment.

If you have difficulties, please contact the support team and we will assist you.

Markup

Make a bulleted list where the first bullet only contains TABLE (uppercase).
Other bullets will become table rows.
Use a vertical bar | to split the rows into cells.
Save the page.

Example:

DEMOTABLE
head 1 | head 2 | head 3
cell 1 | cell 2 | cell 3
cell 4 | cell 5 | cell 6
cell 7 | cell 8 | cell 9

The cells in the first line after "TABLE" will become the table headers, with a bold font and a darker background.
In other cells you can mark text as bold/italic, and insert links.

Options:

To align the columns leave space around the header cells:
- centred: leave space(s) between the header and the vertical bars:
  | centred column |
- left: glue the header to the left vertical bar, leave space(s) to the right one:
  |left aligned column |
- right: leave space(s) to the left vertical bar, glue the header to the right one:
  | right aligned column|
- the first and the last columns don't have vertical bars, but you can still insert spaces to define alignment
- all cells in a column will be aligned the same way as the column header.
To merge adjacent cells on the same row, glue the right vertical bars together:
| double cell || normal | triple cell |||
To merge adjacent cells in the same column, type the text in the top cell and only caret "^" characters in the lower merged cell(s).
| double height cell |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |

Example column alignment (bars aligned for readability, you can use a single space character):

DEMOTABLE
left column | right column| centred column
left | right | centred
left | right | double
double cell || ^^^^^^

How to insert a line break in a table cell?

Line breaks in the bulleted item are preserved, this is the way to go. On your keyboard, press Shift+Enter; that's hold down the Shift key, press and release Enter, release Shift. This will make a line break in the list bullet instead of opening a new bullet. When the page is saved, the line breaks will appear inside the cells:

DEMOTABLE
Day |Work
Monday | AM: Ward round
PM: Talk to trainees
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday | AM: Rest
PM: Relaxation

How to more easily maintain large(r) tables?

Tables with more than a few words per cell, or with many columns are difficult to maintain. Line breaks at the end of a cell are ignored. You can insert a line break (Shift+Enter) just before the vertical bars, then every cell will start on a new line after the vertical bar character. This will visually be much more readable and easily maintainable.

DEMOTABLE
Files in Toolbox
| Available offline
| Editable
| Searchable
Text (visual editor)
| Yes
| Yes (in editor)
| Yes, full text, weighted
Images
| Yes
| No
| Filenames and captions
PDF
| Yes
| No
| Filenames and captions
DOCX, PPTX
| No
| In office processor
| Filenames and captions

Some editors will feel this format is easier to maintain.