Rich Table

Obsidian only. The rich-table fenced code block is rendered by the plugin — it won't display in standard Markdown editors or GitHub previews.

Rich, interactive tables for Obsidian — with cell merges, inline editing, wikilink autocomplete, typed columns, drag-to-reorder, math formulas, lists, images, and more.

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Why Rich Table?

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Installation

Community plugin browser (recommended):

1. Open Settings → Community plugins → Browse
2. Search for Rich Table and install
3. Enable the plugin

Or: Open in Obsidian

Manual: copy main.js, manifest.json, styles.css to <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/rich-table/

Minimum Obsidian version: 1.8.7

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Demo

⬆️ Upgrading from v0.x? — v1 → v2 migration: the upgrade banner on old-format tables, converting in one click or keeping the old format read-only.

1 · Quick start from template — or a blank table

Type ```rich-table yourself, or skip typing it: run Insert rich-table block from the command palette (bind it your own hotkey under Settings → Hotkeys), click the ribbon icon, or right-click in the editor and pick it from the context menu — all three drop an empty block at the cursor.

An empty rich-table code block shows one button per built-in template (currently a full-featured Demo and a Cornell Notes layout) plus Insert blank table, which opens a Word/Sheets-style size picker — hover an 8×6 grid to preview and click to confirm a row/column count, or type exact numbers for anything past the visible grid. Hovering any button live-previews that option below; with nothing hovered, the default template previews. Templates are auto-discovered from src/templates/*.yaml (same pattern as themes) — no code changes needed to add one.

2 · Merge cells — drag-select → Merge in popup

3 · Typed columns & cell style — click to pick value, double-click to set style

4 · Drag to reorder & row/column ops — ⠿ handle + double-click menu

5 · Drag to resize — column header right edge · row bottom edge

6 · Title & footer — click to edit, Shift+Enter for multi-line

7 · Column filtering — filter rows to focus on what matters

8 · Rich cell content — math · bold/italic · links · images · lists · multi-line

🎬 Demo GIF coming soon

9 · Copy/paste interop with Excel & Markdown — paste a range from Excel/Sheets straight into a cell (detected via clipboard HTML), or a standard Markdown/GFM pipe table pasted as plain text (typed by hand, copied from another note, an LLM reply, GitHub, etc.); pasting onto a header cell instead converts the whole thing — the pasted header row becomes column names, the rest becomes data, table-format conversion in one paste. Copy a selection out as an Excel-compatible table or as a Markdown table, from the selection/cell/header menus

🎬 Demo GIF coming soon

10 · Row sorting — column selector popup: one-time sort or live auto-sort with a header indicator

11 · Summary/aggregate rows — Sum/Average/Min/Max/Count via the Σ icon or column selector popup; per-row remove and reorder

12 · Collapse/expand table — fold-icon button hides/shows the body while keeping the title and header row visible

13 · Table lock — 🔒 icon disables all graphical editing for that table

14 · Auto-fit all — ⊞ icon fits every column width and row height to its content in one click

15 · Theme picker — 🎨 icon switches between built-in themes (academic, grid, plain)

16 · Split cell — double-click a plain cell → split into 2 rows/columns; other cells in that row/column keep their current shape

17 · Status bar — row/column totals, selection size and sum/average; drag the divider to resize its own scrollbar track; ⚙️ view settings to pin it or show only on hover

🎬 Demo GIF coming soon

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Keyboard

A cell is in one of three states, and every shortcut below follows from which one you're in.

Editing — an editor is open in the cell. This is where a click lands you.

Selected — the cell is outlined but no editor is open. Reached with Esc or Enter above.

Notes:

• The header row takes part — arrow up from the first data row to reach it; typing there renames the column.
• Merged cells are entered at their anchor, never at a position they cover; hidden and filtered-out rows and columns are skipped.
• Typed columns behave per type: a date cell opens the native picker, where the arrow keys step the day/month/year segments instead; a choice cell opens Obsidian's own value menu, which you navigate as any Obsidian menu. Tab commits and moves on from either.

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Formulas

Type = into a plain cell to start a formula — same trigger as Excel/Sheets. Supports arithmetic (+ - * /, parentheses) and SUM / AVG / MIN / MAX / COUNT over a range. While typing, click another cell to insert a reference, or drag to insert a range — no need to type a cell address by hand.

A formula follows the row/column it references, not its position, so inserting or reordering rows/columns never breaks it. A deleted reference shows #REF!; other results are #CIRCULAR! (self-reference), #DIV/0!, and #VALUE!.

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Claude Code Skill

A SKILL.md is included for use with Claude Code. Once installed, Claude agents can create and modify rich-table blocks directly in your vault — adding rows, applying styles, defining merges — without you having to remember the syntax.

cp SKILL.md ~/.claude/skills/rich-table/SKILL.md

Then ask Claude: "Create a project tracker table in my note using rich-table".

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Settings

Open Settings → Rich Table to configure the plugin.

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Features & Roadmap

Status: ✅ shipped · 🔜 planned. Priority reflects how well something fits the current design — P1 fits as it stands · P2 fits but needs a new piece inside it · P3 needs architectural change, a heavy dependency, or more thought.

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Format

```rich-table
---
version: 2
title: Project tracker
columns:
  - id: c_000000
    name: Task
    width: 200
  - id: c_000001
    name: Status
    type: task-status
    width: 110
rows:
  - id: r_000000
    cells:
      c_000000: "**Design** — architecture review"
      c_000001: done
  - id: r_000001
    cells:
      c_000000: Build
      c_000001: pending
  - id: r_000002
    cells:
      c_000000: |-
        - Write tests
        - Fix edge cases
      c_000001: todo
merges:
  - anchor: r_000000.c_000000
    end: r_000001.c_000000
styles:
  - target: header
    bold: true
    bg: "#e8f0fe"
  - target: r_000000.c_000001
    bg: "#f0fdf4"
footer: "Updated weekly · click any cell to edit"
---
<!-- Generated by Rich Table. Do not edit below — data source is the YAML front-matter above. -->
| Task                          | Status  |
| ----------------------------- | ------- |
| **Design** — architecture ... | done    |
| Build                         | pending |
| - Write tests<br>- Fix edge.. | todo    |
```

The YAML front-matter is the only data source. The pipe table below the <!-- Generated … --> comment is a read-only mirror regenerated on every write-back and can be safely ignored.

Cell content supports full Obsidian Markdown: **bold**, *italic*, [[wikilinks]], [links](url), ![images](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdkay/obsidian-rich-table/HEAD/url), - lists, $math$, <br> for line breaks.

Style targets (v2 ID-based):

Upgrading from v0.x? Tables written in the old format automatically show an upgrade banner. Click Convert to new format for one-click migration, or Keep old format to continue reading without converting.

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Themes

Add theme: to the YAML front-matter to apply a built-in visual theme:

theme: academic   # LaTeX booktabs style — three horizontal rules, no grid lines
theme: grid       # Excel "All Borders" style — full grid, bold outer frame + header rule
theme: plain      # Colorful gradient header + animated border

Themes are purely visual — they never affect data or layout.

Quick customization without a theme: for a small tweak (not a full theme), set one of these CSS variables on .bt-render-root in an Obsidian CSS snippet — no selectors needed:

A cell draws only its right and bottom edge; the table's own --bt-border-outer supplies the grid's top and left edge. --bt-cell-border-top/-left are still accepted but no longer contribute to gridlines — with one border per edge, drawing all four would render every internal line at double thickness. This is what lets frozen rows/columns keep their gridlines while scrolling.

.bt-render-root {
  --bt-header-bg: #223;
  --bt-cell-bg: #fafafa;
  --bt-border-outer: 2px solid #888;
}

A manually-set per-cell style (via the style panel) always wins over both themes and these variables.

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Known Issues

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License

AGPL-3.0 — derivatives must be open-sourced under the same license.

For commercial licensing: [email protected]

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Support the Project

Rich Table is free and open-source under the AGPL-3.0 license. If this plugin has improved your workflow, you can support its ongoing development with a voluntary donation. Every contribution helps fix bugs, add new features, and maintain compatibility with future Obsidian updates.

💳 PayPal

🧧 WeChat Pay / Alipay

Thank you for your support! 🙏

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Feedback

Issues and feature requests: GitHub Issues

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