Rendering Tables

GFM syntax

In Markdown, it is preferable to write tables via GFM syntax.

| left   | center | right |
| :----- | :----: | ----: |
| foo    |  bar   |   baz |
| banana | apple  |  kiwi |

will be rendered as:

HTML Literal Tables

If you try to render the following literal <table /> element:

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>left</th>
      <th align="center">center</th>
      <th align="right">right</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>foo</td>
      <td align="center">bar</td>
      <td align="right">baz</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>banana</td>
      <td align="center">apple</td>
      <td align="right">kiwi</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

you’ll get the following result:

Dynamic Tables

How to Write

Want to render a dynamic table? You can use embedded JavaScript expressions into your table for it:

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Country</th>
      <th>Flag</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    {[
      { country: 'France', flag: '🇫🇷' },
      { country: 'Ukraine', flag: '🇺🇦' }
    ].map(item => (
      <tr key={item.country}>
        <td>{item.country}</td>
        <td>{item.flag}</td>
      </tr>
    ))}
  </tbody>
</table>

will be rendered as:

Unexpected Result

Table looks different compared to GFM syntax table:

1. only children of table body <tbody /> is styled

2. table header is unstyled

3. table doesn’t have margin top

Why This Happens

MDX2 doesn’t replace literal HTML elements with <MDXProvider />.

Adam Wathan, creator of Tailwind CSS submitted an issue in MDX2 to have some an escape hatch that we can name like:

please only transform markdown tags, not literal HTML tags

Table header looks unstyled since it has not been replaced with Nextra’s MDX components <tr />, <th /> and <td />, for the same reason <table /> literal is not replaced and doesn’t have default margin-top aka mt-6.

Ways to Fix It

One-Time Fix

Just wrap your table with curly braces { and }, e.g.

{<table>
  ...
</table>}

Changing Default Behaviour

If this thing is still confusing for you, and you want to use regular literal HTML elements for your tables, do the following:

npm i remark-mdx-disable-explicit-jsx

pnpm add remark-mdx-disable-explicit-jsx

yarn add remark-mdx-disable-explicit-jsx

bun add remark-mdx-disable-explicit-jsx

import nextra from 'nextra'
import remarkMdxDisableExplicitJsx from 'remark-mdx-disable-explicit-jsx'
 
const withNextra = nextra({
  theme: 'nextra-theme-docs',
  themeConfig: './theme.config.tsx',
  mdxOptions: {
    remarkPlugins: [
      [
        remarkMdxDisableExplicitJsx,
        { whiteList: ['table', 'thead', 'tbody', 'tr', 'th', 'td'] }
      ]
    ]
  }
})
 
export default withNextra()