Tables

Two-column markdown tables turn each row into a card — ideal for vocabulary, terms, dates, and other short Q&A pairs.

## Concepts

| Question                | Answer                                            |
| ----------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- |
| What is photosynthesis? | The process plants use to convert sunlight        |
| Define gravity          | The force that attracts objects toward each other |

How it works

The first column is the front, the second column is the back. The header row is ignored.
A table must sit directly under a header — no other paragraphs between the header and the table.
Add a third Notes column for hints or mnemonics, shown on demand when you press N during review.

## Capitals

| Country   | Capital  | Notes        |
| --------- | -------- | ------------ |
| Australia | Canberra | Not Sydney   |
| Turkey    | Ankara   | Not Istanbul |

The first row of that table reviews like this:

Front

Australia

Back

Canberra

Notes

Not Sydney

One card per row. The third column becomes the note.

The header above the table is not itself a card — it names the group, and (like any heading above the configured level) travels with each row as breadcrumb context.

When a table is the right choice

Tables suit material that is genuinely a list of pairs: vocabulary, formulas, dates, definitions, drug names. Adding a row is a one-line edit, which makes a table far faster to extend than writing a new heading and paragraph for each item.

They are the wrong choice when the back of a card needs more than a sentence. Table cells cannot hold paragraphs, lists or code blocks, so anything that needs room should be a header + paragraph card instead.

More than three columns

Only the first three columns are read as front, back and notes. If your table is genuinely wider — a term with a reading, a gender, an example sentence — that is what templates are for: bind the table to a card design by tag and every column becomes a {{placeholder}} you can position and style.

Combining with cloze

Cloze deletions work inside table cells, which is useful when the answer is a sentence with one key element rather than a single word:

## Pharmacology

| Drug     | Mechanism                                    |
| -------- | -------------------------------------------- |
| Aspirin  | Irreversibly inhibits ==COX-1 and COX-2==    |
| Warfarin | Inhibits ==vitamin K epoxide reductase==     |

See Cloze deletions for how the blanks behave during review.

Both directions

Vocabulary usually needs drilling in both directions. Set reverse: true in the note’s frontmatter and every row becomes two cards — front-to-back and back-to-front — each scheduled independently, so the harder direction gets the attention it needs. See Title, reverse & tags.

Tagging individual rows

Per-card tags are inherited by table rows, so a tag on the table’s heading applies to every card it produces. That makes a table a convenient unit to pull into a filter deck later.