Tables, code and math#

Tables#

| Option | Default | What it does      |
|--------|:-------:|------------------:|
| `a`    |   on    | something         |
| `b`    |   off   | something else    |

Alignment comes from the delimiter row: :--- left, :---: centre, ---: right.

A | inside a code span does not split a cell. This is the GitHub rule and Obsidian follows it, so you can write `a|b` in a cell. To write a literal pipe outside code, escape it: \|. That is also why a wikilink alias inside a table is written [[Note\|alias]].

Three structural rules decide whether you have a table at all:

• The header row must be a one-line paragraph followed immediately by the delimiter row.
• The header row or the delimiter row must contain a pipe.
• A table cannot interrupt a longer paragraph, and a row line with no pipe ends the table.

How columns are sized#

In reading view, columns follow HTML's automatic table layout, measured with the real font: each column wants its widest cell, needs at least its longest unbreakable word, and when the total does not fit, the slack is shared out in proportion. See reading view.

Code#

Inline code is backticks: `like this`. A backtick run with no closer retries one backtick shorter, so a stray triple backtick does not swallow the rest of the line.

Fenced blocks take a language label:

```rust
fn main() {
    println!("hello");
}
```

The label is shown on the block in reading view. Code never wraps — a long line scrolls sideways inside its own block, which is almost always what you want for code and is what Obsidian does.

Nothing inside a code span or a fenced block is parsed as anything else: no wikilinks, no tags, no math, and a rename never rewrites a link that appears in code.

Math#

Inline: $e^{i\pi} = -1$

Block:

$$
\int_0^1 x^2 \, dx = \tfrac{1}{3}
$$

The delimiter rules are Obsidian's, and they are stricter than you might expect:

• $...$ needs no space just inside the dollars, and the closing $ must not be followed by a digit. That is what stops $5 and $7 from becoming math.
• An unterminated $$ block runs to the end of the file.
• $$x$$ opened and closed on one line stays inline inside its paragraph.

Comments#

Visible text %%hidden%% more visible text.

%%
A whole block that does not render.
%%

%%…%% hides text in both reading view and Live Preview.

• An inline %%comment%% does not cross a line break.
• An unterminated %% block runs to the end of the file, like $$.
• %%x%% closed on one line stays inline.

Next#

• Settings