Skip to main content
Tabulate provides a powerful and flexible way to create formatted tables in C++. This section showcases various examples demonstrating different features and use cases.

​
Quick Start Examples

​
Basic Table Formatting

The most common use case is creating a simple formatted table with headers and data: 
#include <tabulate/table.hpp>
using namespace tabulate;
using Row_t = Table::Row_t;

int main() {
  Table colors;

  colors.add_row(Row_t{"Font Color is Red", "Font Color is Blue", "Font Color is Green"});
  colors.add_row(Row_t{"Everything is Red", "Everything is Blue", "Everything is Green"});
  colors.add_row(
      Row_t{"Font Background is Red", "Font Background is Blue", "Font Background is Green"});

  colors[0][0].format().font_color(Color::red).font_style({FontStyle::bold});
  colors[0][1].format().font_color(Color::blue).font_style({FontStyle::bold});
  colors[0][2].format().font_color(Color::green).font_style({FontStyle::bold});

  colors[2][0].format().font_background_color(Color::red).font_style({FontStyle::bold});
  colors[2][1].format().font_background_color(Color::blue).font_style({FontStyle::bold});
  colors[2][2].format().font_background_color(Color::green).font_style({FontStyle::bold});

  std::cout << colors << std::endl;
}
Font colors, background colors, and borders can all be customized independently for each cell.

​
Font Styles

Tabulate supports various font styles that can be combined: 
#include <tabulate/table.hpp>
using namespace tabulate;
using Row_t = Table::Row_t;

int main() {
  Table styled_table;
  styled_table.add_row(Row_t{"Bold", "Italic", "Bold & Italic", "Blinking"});
  styled_table.add_row(Row_t{"Underline", "Crossed", "Dark", "Bold, Italic & Underlined"});

  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});
  styled_table[0][3].format().font_style({FontStyle::blink});

  styled_table[1][0].format().font_style({FontStyle::underline});
  styled_table[1][1].format().font_style({FontStyle::crossed});
  styled_table[1][2].format().font_style({FontStyle::dark});
  styled_table[1][3].format().font_style(
      {FontStyle::bold, FontStyle::italic, FontStyle::underline});

  std::cout << styled_table << std::endl;
}
Multiple font styles can be combined by passing them in an initializer list to font_style().

​
Word Wrapping

Tabulate automatically handles word wrapping based on column width: 
#include <tabulate/table.hpp>
using namespace tabulate;
using Row_t = Table::Row_t;

int main() {
  Table table;

  table.add_row(Row_t{"This paragraph contains a veryveryveryveryveryverylong "
                      "word. The long word will "
                      "break and word wrap to the next line.",
                      "This paragraph \nhas embedded '\\n' \ncharacters and\n "
                      "will break\n exactly "
                      "where\n you want it\n to\n break."});

  table[0][0].format().width(20);
  table[0][1].format().width(50);

  std::cout << table << std::endl;
}

​
Movies Database Table

Learn how to create a properly formatted database-style table with column alignment and header styling. View Movies Example →

​
UML Class Diagram

Discover how to create nested tables to build complex visualizations like UML class diagrams. View Class Diagram Example →

​
Unicode Support

See how Tabulate handles multi-byte Unicode characters from various languages and scripts. View Unicode Example →

​
Export Formats

​
Markdown Export

Export your tables to Markdown format: 
#include <tabulate/markdown_exporter.hpp>
using namespace tabulate;
using Row_t = Table::Row_t;

int main() {
  Table movies;
  movies.add_row(Row_t{"S/N", "Movie Name", "Director", "Estimated Budget", "Release Date"});
  movies.add_row(Row_t{"tt1979376", "Toy Story 4", "Josh Cooley", "$200,000,000", "21 June 2019"});
  movies.add_row(Row_t{"tt3263904", "Sully", "Clint Eastwood", "$60,000,000", "9 September 2016"});

  MarkdownExporter exporter;
  auto markdown = exporter.dump(movies);

  std::cout << markdown << std::endl;
}
Output: 
| S/N | Movie Name | Director | Estimated Budget | Release Date |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| tt1979376 | Toy Story 4 | Josh Cooley | $200,000,000 | 21 June 2019 |
| tt3263904 | Sully | Clint Eastwood | $60,000,000 | 9 September 2016 |
Tabulate also supports exporting to LaTeX and AsciiDoc formats. See the API Reference for more details.

​
Next Steps

Explore the detailed examples to learn more about:
  • Aligning content within cells
  • Customizing borders and corners
  • Creating nested table structures
  • Working with Unicode characters
  • Exporting tables to different formats

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get started for freeTalk to us