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The Format class provides a fluent interface for styling tables, rows, columns, and cells. Call .format() on any table element to access formatting options.

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Accessing Format Objects

Table table;
table.add_row({"Header 1", "Header 2"});

// Table-level formatting
table.format().font_style({FontStyle::bold});

// Row-level formatting
table[0].format().font_align(FontAlign::center);

// Column-level formatting
table.column(0).format().padding(2);

// Cell-level formatting
table[0][0].format().font_color(Color::red);

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Dimensions

Control the width and height of table elements.

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Width

// Set cell width
table[0][0].format().width(20);

// Set width for entire column
table.column(1).format().width(50);
When no width is specified, Tabulate automatically calculates column width based on the widest content in that column, including padding.

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Height

// Set cell height
table[0][0].format().height(3);

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Padding

Add space between cell borders and content. 
// Set all padding at once
cell.format().padding(2);

// Set individual sides
cell.format()
  .padding_left(2)
  .padding_right(2)
  .padding_top(1)
  .padding_bottom(1);
Default padding: left = 1, right = 1, top = 0, bottom = 0

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Font Alignment

Align text within cells using FontAlign. 
Table movies;
movies.add_row({"S/N", "Movie Name", "Director", "Estimated Budget", "Release Date"});

// Center align the 'Director' column
movies.column(2).format()
  .font_align(FontAlign::center);

// Right align the 'Estimated Budget' column
movies.column(3).format()
  .font_align(FontAlign::right);

// Left align is the default
movies.column(1).format()
  .font_align(FontAlign::left);
Available alignments:
  • FontAlign::left (default)
  • FontAlign::center
  • FontAlign::right
Alignment is calculated after padding is applied, so text aligns within the available content area.

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Font Styles

Apply text styling with FontStyle. Multiple styles can be combined. 
Table styled_table;
styled_table.add_row({"Bold", "Italic", "Bold & Italic"});

styled_table[0][0].format()
  .font_style({FontStyle::bold});

styled_table[0][1].format()
  .font_style({FontStyle::italic});

styled_table[0][2].format()
  .font_style({FontStyle::bold, FontStyle::italic});
Available font styles:
  • FontStyle::bold
  • FontStyle::dark
  • FontStyle::italic
  • FontStyle::underline
  • FontStyle::blink
  • FontStyle::reverse
  • FontStyle::concealed
  • FontStyle::crossed
Pass multiple styles in a vector to combine them: .font_style({FontStyle::bold, FontStyle::italic, FontStyle::underline})
Font style availability depends on your terminal emulator. Some terminals may not support all styles.

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Colors

Set foreground and background colors for fonts, borders, and corners.

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Font Colors

// Set font (foreground) color
cell.format().font_color(Color::red);

// Set font background color
cell.format().font_background_color(Color::yellow);

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Border Colors

// Set all border colors at once
cell.format()
  .border_color(Color::blue)
  .border_background_color(Color::cyan);

// Set individual border colors
cell.format()
  .border_left_color(Color::red)
  .border_right_color(Color::green)
  .border_top_color(Color::blue)
  .border_bottom_color(Color::yellow);

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Corner Colors

// Set all corner colors
cell.format()
  .corner_color(Color::magenta)
  .corner_background_color(Color::white);

// Set individual corners
cell.format()
  .corner_top_left_color(Color::cyan)
  .corner_top_right_color(Color::yellow)
  .corner_bottom_left_color(Color::green)
  .corner_bottom_right_color(Color::red);

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Universal Color Methods

// Set foreground color for font, borders, and corners
cell.format().color(Color::blue);

// Set background color for font, borders, and corners
cell.format().background_color(Color::yellow);
Available colors:
  • Color::grey
  • Color::red
  • Color::green
  • Color::yellow
  • Color::blue
  • Color::magenta
  • Color::cyan
  • Color::white
  • Color::none (default, no color)
Color appearance varies depending on your terminal’s color scheme and settings.

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Borders

Customize the characters used for table borders. 
// Set all borders at once
table.format().border("-");

// Set individual borders
table.format()
  .border_top("=")
  .border_bottom("=")
  .border_left("|")
  .border_right("|");

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Show/Hide Borders

// Show all borders
table.format().show_border();

// Hide all borders
table.format().hide_border();

// Show/hide individual borders
table.format()
  .show_border_top()
  .hide_border_bottom()
  .show_border_left()
  .hide_border_right();

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Row Separators

// Enable row separators between rows
table.format().show_row_separator();
Default borders:
  • Top/Bottom: "-"
  • Left/Right: "|"

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Corners

Customize corner characters where borders meet. 
// Set all corners at once
table.format().corner("+");

// Set individual corners
table.format()
  .corner_top_left("┌")
  .corner_top_right("┐")
  .corner_bottom_left("└")
  .corner_bottom_right("┘");
Default corners: "+"

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Unicode Box Drawing

Table table;
table.add_row({"Fancy", "Table"});

table.format()
  .corner_top_left("╔")
  .corner_top_right("╗")
  .corner_bottom_left("╚")
  .corner_bottom_right("╝")
  .border_top("═")
  .border_bottom("═")
  .border_left("║")
  .border_right("║");
Use Unicode box-drawing characters for professional-looking tables. Remember to call .multi_byte_characters(true) when using Unicode.

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Column Separator

Customize the character separating columns. 
table.format()
  .column_separator("|")
  .column_separator_color(Color::blue)
  .column_separator_background_color(Color::white);
Default: "|"

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Word Wrapping

Tabulate automatically wraps text that exceeds the cell width. 
Table table;
table.add_row({
  "This paragraph contains a veryveryveryveryveryverylong word.",
  "This paragraph \nhas embedded '\\n' \ncharacters"
});

table[0][0].format().width(20);  // Auto word-wrap enabled
table[0][1].format().width(50);  // Manual breaks with \n
Automatic word-wrapping is used only if the cell contents don’t have embedded newline \n characters. If you include \n in your text, Tabulate respects your manual line breaks.

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How Word Wrapping Works

  1. Text is split on spaces, hyphens, and tabs
  2. Words are added to lines until the width limit is reached
  3. Long words that exceed the width are hyphenated
  4. Leading/trailing whitespace is trimmed from each line

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Trim Mode

Control whitespace trimming behavior. 
cell.format().trim_mode(Format::TrimMode::kBoth);    // Default
cell.format().trim_mode(Format::TrimMode::kLeft);    // Trim left only
cell.format().trim_mode(Format::TrimMode::kRight);   // Trim right only
cell.format().trim_mode(Format::TrimMode::kNone);    // No trimming
Available modes:
  • TrimMode::kBoth - Trim whitespace from both ends (default)
  • TrimMode::kLeft - Trim from left end only
  • TrimMode::kRight - Trim from right end only
  • TrimMode::kNone - Don’t trim whitespace

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Multi-Byte Characters

Enable support for Unicode and multi-byte character width calculation. 
Table table;
table.add_row({"Language", "Phrase"});
table.add_row({"Mandarin Chinese", "我爱你"});
table.add_row({"Japanese", "愛してる"});
table.add_row({"Korean", "사랑해 (Saranghae)"});

// Enable multi-byte character support
table.column(1).format()
  .multi_byte_characters(true);
Multi-byte character support uses wcswidth to calculate display width. This is an opt-in feature because it’s more computationally expensive than simple string length.

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Locale Support

Set explicit locale for character width calculation: 
// Set locale for a cell
table[1][1].format().locale("zh_CN.UTF-8");  // Chinese

// Set locale for a column
table.column(1).format().locale("ja_JP.UTF-8");  // Japanese
Locale strings are system-specific. The same locale string may not work on all platforms. Not all locales may be available on your system.

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Complete Example

#include <tabulate/table.hpp>
using namespace tabulate;

int main() {
  Table universal_constants;
  
  universal_constants.add_row({"Quantity", "Value"});
  universal_constants.add_row({"Speed of light in vacuum", "299 792 458 m·s⁻¹"});
  universal_constants.add_row({"Planck's constant", "6.626 0693(11) × 10⁻³⁴ J·s"});
  
  // Table-level formatting
  universal_constants.format()
    .font_style({FontStyle::bold})
    .border_top(" ")
    .border_bottom(" ")
    .border_left(" ")
    .border_right(" ")
    .corner(" ");
  
  // Format header row
  universal_constants[0].format()
    .padding_top(1)
    .padding_bottom(1)
    .font_align(FontAlign::center)
    .font_style({FontStyle::underline})
    .font_background_color(Color::red);
  
  // Format second column
  universal_constants.column(1).format()
    .font_color(Color::yellow);
  
  // Format specific cell
  universal_constants[0][1].format()
    .font_background_color(Color::blue)
    .font_color(Color::white);
  
  std::cout << universal_constants << std::endl;
}
This example demonstrates the fluent interface and how formatting can be applied at different levels of the table hierarchy.

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