Empty cells confuse the table renderer

[Malcolm]

Table rendering works nicely here in the forum. The two tables below contain empty cells. The tables are rendered as I expect them to be rendered. However, when rendered in Notenik the alignment is wrong for Mixed Spice. It is aligned with Processes, rather than Ingredients.

Additionally, Notenik will draw one vertical cell border that is extraneous ( see the second table, row containing “substitute” ). The extra cell border will be drawn in different places depending on the number of cells in the row, and the number, and placement, of the blank cells.

qty	unit	cups	ingredient	process
1	kg	4	mixed dried fruit	chopped coarsely
250	g		butter	chopped coarsely
275	g	1¼	brown sugar	firmly packed
250	ml	1	sherry
60	ml	¼	water
225	g	1½	plain flour
75	g	½	self-raising flour
60	g	½	pecans
105	g	¾	macadamias
2	tsp		mixed spice
2	tsp		orange rind	finely grated
4	whole		eggs	lightly beaten

qty	unit	cups	ingredient
2	tsp		finely grated orange rind
			substitute
1	tsp		orange essence

[hbowie]

Let me look into this.

[hbowie]

I think the problem is that the empty cells need to be blank cells — in other words, they need to contain at least one space.

If you look at the Knowledge Base, you’ll see it contains the following paragraph:

Per the MultiMarkdown convention, you can indicate that a cell should span multiple columns by simply adding additional pipes (|) at the end of the cell. The number of pipes equals the number of columns the cell should span.

So when you enter two consecutive pipes, Notenik interprets this, not as a blank cell, but as an indication that the cell is spanning multiple columns.

Part of what’s tripping you up here is the lack of 100% consistency between parsers when it comes to markdown extensions.

[Malcolm]

@hbowie I think you have missed the problem. The code for the row that is problematic has an empty cell 3 and an empty cell 5:

|2|tsp||mixed spice||

In notenik the display is:

The cell for Mixed Spice should align column four, i.e., with Macadamias and Orange Rind. It aligns with column five.

[hbowie]

I guess I need a better understanding of what you expect to have happen.

If I get rid of all the consecutive pipes, putting spaces in the empty cells, then this is what I see in Notenik:

Is this not what you wanted?

This is what the resulting code looks like:

|qty|unit|cups|ingredient|process|
|---:|:---|:---|:---|:---|
|1|kg|4|mixed dried fruit|chopped coarsely|
|250|g| |butter|chopped coarsely|
|275|g|1¼ |brown sugar|firmly packed|
|250|ml|1|sherry| |
|60|ml|¼ |water| |
|225|g|1½ |plain flour| |
|75|g|½ |self-raising flour| |
|60|g|½ |pecans| |
|105|g|¾ |macadamias| |
|2|tsp| |mixed spice| |
|2|tsp| |orange rind|finely grated|
|4|whole| |eggs| lightly beaten|


|qty|unit|cups|ingredient|
|---|---|---|---|
|2|tsp| |finely grated orange rind|
| | | |substitute|
|1|tsp| |orange essence|

[Malcolm]

I hThe thing I’m pointing out is that when there is nothing in the field (whether or not it is rendered in HTML as a colspan ) the content should end up in the correct column.

If you look at the picture I posted, there’s a screen shot of my Notenik collection. The words “mixed spice” are in the wrong column.

[hbowie]

OK. I see your point.

Thanks for reporting.

Let me see what I can do to straighten this out.

[hbowie]

Please try the new beta and let me know if this fixes things for you.

Thanks again for your persistence in reporting this.