Vtable

English | 中文

Enhanced editable tables for Obsidian. Create tables inside a ```vtable code block, edit cells directly in Live Preview, and go far beyond what native Markdown tables can do: in-cell line breaks, merged cells, Excel-style formulas, and even checkable task lists that native tables can't hold — plus images, math, charts, and one-click export.

Built to be beautiful out of the box: a clean, minimal design with theme-aware colors, and highly customizable — per-table line styles, zebra striping, header colors, cell alignment and background colors, all adjustable to match your vault.

Works on desktop, iPad, and mobile.

Features

Rich cell content

Anything you type in a cell renders on blur, exactly like Obsidian preview:

• Markdown inline styles: **bold**, *italic*, ==highlight==, ~~strikethrough~~, `code`, [links](url)
• Obsidian embeds: ![[image.png]] and ![[image.png|300]] — grab an image's corner handle while editing to resize it; the width syntax updates automatically
• Inline math: $E=mc^2$
• Checkable task lists: - [ ] / - [x] — click the checkbox in preview mode and the source updates
• Hand-written HTML where Markdown falls short (e.g. font sizes, colors)

Structure

• Merge right / merge down / split, on single cells or whole selections
• Insert and delete rows and columns anywhere
• Drag row and column headers to reorder
• Skip-over navigation: Tab, Enter, and arrow keys jump across merged cells correctly
• Quick append: when the cursor is in the last row/column, a + bar appears at the table's bottom/right edge — click it to add a row/column

Selection and batch operations

• Ctrl/Cmd+Shift + click to start a selection, drag for a rubber-band range
• Double-click a cell to select it; on mobile, double-tap accumulates a selection
• Batch apply bold, italic, font size, alignment (left/center/right), background color, or clear content
• Click a row/column drag handle without sliding to select the whole row/column; Shift+click adds it to the selection
• Ctrl/Cmd+Delete deletes the rows/columns of a full-row or full-column selection

Grid copy & paste

Copy a rectangular region as a Markdown table, and paste any Markdown table back into the grid — across tables, notes, and even other apps:

• With a selection active, Ctrl/Cmd+C copies the region as a standard Markdown table (| a | b | with a separator row)
• Click a cell, then Ctrl/Cmd+V a Markdown table: it is written into the grid with the clicked cell as the top-left corner. Existing content is overwritten; anything beyond the current rows/columns is dropped (no rows or columns are added)
• Ctrl/Cmd+Alt+V pastes the same way but extends the table with whole rows/columns to fit the clipboard content
• Works between any two vtables (same note or different notes), and accepts Markdown tables copied from elsewhere. Pasting plain text keeps the original single-cell behavior

Series fill (desktop)

Select a cell, grab the small triangle that appears at its bottom-right corner, and drag along a row or column:

• Plain text is copied; plain numbers fill incrementally (a small pop-up near the fill end flips the direction between increment and decrement)
• Mixed text + numbers keep the text and increment the number (Item 1, Item 2, …)
• Calendar-aware cycles: weekdays (星期一… / Monday…), months (一月… / January…) repeat in loops; dates like 1月1日 advance by the real calendar (leap years respected)

Diagonal split cells

The Diagonal split cell command draws a top-left → bottom-right diagonal in the focused (or selected) cell and splits it into two single-line input areas — upper-right and lower-left. If a cell already contains text, it moves to the lower-left area. Press Enter or arrow keys to jump between the two areas and out of the cell.

Table style presets

Beyond the corner radius and header background, each table can take one of three line-style presets, plus zebra stripes:

• Three-line table — top rule, rule under the header, bottom rule; no vertical lines
• No grid lines — all cell borders removed
• Horizontal lines only — top/bottom edges and row separators kept, vertical lines removed
• Zebra stripes — alternate-row tinting from the theme accent or a custom color; single-cell backgrounds always win. Starts at row 3 when the header background is on

Presets apply to the whole vault via Settings, or per table with the Table style call, Remove table styles, and Zebra stripe style commands (per-table overrides are stored with the table). Styles are display-only: cells return to their raw look while you are editing them.

Three display modes

Switch anytime from the mode buttons above the table; the choice is stored per table.

• OL (default) — cells wrap freely, auto height
• HS — cells stretch horizontally without wrapping, with a draggable custom scrollbar
• RC — fixed column widths and row heights with dedicated drag handles; rows auto-grow when content overflows

Excel-style formulas

Start a cell with =FUNC(range) and it shows the computed result; focus the cell again to edit the original formula. Supported functions:

=SUM(A1:A5)   =AVERAGE(B1:B3)   =COUNT(C1:C9)   =MIN(A1:A9)   =MAX(A1:A9)

Charts

Turn table data into SVG charts that follow dark/light themes:

• vbarchart bar charts, vpie pie charts, vline line charts
• A Convert to chart command auto-detects the header type
• Template files are generated automatically so you can start from a ready-made structure

Conversions

• Markdown table or HTML table → Vtable
• Vtable → Markdown table or HTML table
• All edits auto-save back into the code block source

Data storage

Tables live inside a ```vtable code block and serialize to JSON, so everything survives round-trips:

• Each cell stores its content plus rs/cs (row/column span) and optional alignment and background color
• Extra fields keep per-table state: display mode, RC column widths and row heights, single-table line style and zebra stripe overrides
• Cell content is Markdown with inline HTML as needed; line breaks are stored as <br>
• Formulas store the original text (=SUM(A1:B2)) and evaluate at render time
• Every edit writes back to the code block automatically; plain Markdown pipe tables pasted into the block are parsed and converted too

Keyboard and commands

All commands can be bound to custom hotkeys in Obsidian settings, including create, conversions, chart generation, styling, diagonal split, and mode switching.

Floating toolbar

A two-row toolbar appears next to the focused cell: bold, italic, font size, merge/split, add/delete rows and columns, and one-click export. It can be enabled separately for desktop and mobile.

Right-click menu

Quick access to insert/delete rows and columns, merge and split cells, copy / paste / cut / delete, and mode switching.

Customizing the context menu

The context menu is fully customizable in Settings → vtable → 右键菜单自定义 (Context menu customization):

• Text mode: one menu row per line; --- inserts a separator line; cmd:commandId inserts any Obsidian command; append |iconName (a Lucide icon name) to override an item's icon.
• Lookup helper: type a keyword to filter vtable actions and all Obsidian commands, click one, optionally enter an icon name, then copy the generated line and paste it into the text box.
• Press Save to apply the layout to all tables immediately. Built-in action ids: vt.copy, vt.paste, vt.cut, vt.delete, vt.clearContent, vt.bold, vt.italic, vt.alignL, vt.alignC, vt.alignR, vt.alignT, vt.alignM, vt.alignB, vt.pickColor, vt.insRowAbove, vt.insRowBelow, vt.delRow, vt.insColLeft, vt.insColRight, vt.delCol, vt.mergeRight, vt.mergeDown, vt.split, vt.modeOL, vt.modeHS, vt.modeRC.

Settings

• UI language (中文 / English; floating toolbar abbreviations get an in-settings legend when English is selected). Command names follow the UI language — reload the plugin after switching
• Show the floating toolbar on desktop / mobile independently
• Show the OL/HS/RC mode switcher
• Table style (collapsible section): table corner radius; header row background color (theme accent or custom); line-style presets (three-line / no grid / horizontal-only) with a global enable toggle; zebra stripes (theme or custom color, with the color picker shown when custom is selected) — plus per-table commands for header background and zebra stripes
• Export: keep alignment & colors in Markdown export via nested HTML tags
• Customizable context menu (see above)

How to use

1. Run Create vtable from the command palette (Ctrl/Cmd+P), or convert an existing Markdown/HTML table with Convert to vtable
2. Click any cell to edit; press Enter for a new line inside the cell
3. Everything is stored in the ```vtable code block as JSON — your notes stay portable

Installation

From the Official Community Plugins (recommended)

Open Settings → Community plugins → Browse in Obsidian, search for Vtable, and install. Updates are delivered automatically through Obsidian.

From BRAT

1. Install the BRAT community plugin
2. In BRAT settings, choose Add beta plugin
3. Enter https://github.com/Ming145/Vtable
4. Enable Vtable in community plugins

Manual

1. Download main.js, styles.css, and manifest.json from the latest Release
2. Create the folder .obsidian/plugins/vtable/ in your vault
3. Copy the three files into it
4. Reload Obsidian and enable Vtable in community plugins

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/Ming145/Vtable
cd Vtable
npm install
npm run build

Then copy main.js, styles.css, and manifest.json into .obsidian/plugins/vtable/.

AI skill

Want an AI assistant (Claude, ChatGPT, …) to write Vtable source code for you? A ready-made skill covering the full source syntax — JSON schema, merged cells, line breaks, formulas, styles, charts and more, all with copy-paste examples — is available at vtable-syntax.

License

MIT