Convert HTML Tables to Markdown Pipe Tables

HTML Tables to Markdown

HTML tables convert to Markdown pipe table syntax (part of GitHub Flavored Markdown). The pipe (|) character separates columns, and a separator row of hyphens defines the header boundary.

Basic Table Conversion

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Name</th>
      <th>Language</th>
      <th>Stars</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>React</td>
      <td>JavaScript</td>
      <td>200k</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Vue</td>
      <td>JavaScript</td>
      <td>200k</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Converts to:

| Name  | Language   | Stars |
|-------|------------|-------|
| React | JavaScript | 200k  |
| Vue   | JavaScript | 200k  |

The first row becomes the header, the second row is the separator (using at least three hyphens per column), and remaining rows are data.

Column Alignment

HTML uses text-align styles or align attributes on <th>/<td>:

<th style="text-align: left">Left</th>
<th style="text-align: center">Center</th>
<th style="text-align: right">Right</th>

Converts to alignment indicators in the separator row:

| Left   | Center | Right |
|:-------|:------:|------:|

Tables Without thead

<table>
  <tr><td>A</td><td>B</td></tr>
  <tr><td>C</td><td>D</td></tr>
</table>

When there is no <thead>, the first row is treated as the header. Some converters create an empty header row instead.

Limitations

Markdown pipe tables do not support:

• colspan / rowspan — merged cells must be flattened
• Multi-line cell content — cells are single-line only
• Nested tables — not possible in Markdown syntax
• Caption — <caption> content is typically placed as a paragraph above the table

For complex tables, some converters fall back to raw HTML output to preserve the structure.