How do I use a tab as the delimiter?

Type the two characters backslash-t in the delimiter box. The tool treats that as a real tab character when splitting your rows.

Why does the output need a monospace font?

Column alignment is done by padding fields with spaces, which only lines up visually when every character has the same width. The output box uses a monospace font for that reason.

Is my data uploaded anywhere?

No. The formatting runs locally in your browser and your text never leaves your device.

What is the difference between left and right alignment?

Left alignment pads spaces after each value so text starts flush left; right alignment pads before each value so numbers line up by their last digit, which is best for figures and currency.

How is each column's width decided?

The tool scans every row and sets each column's width to the longest value in that column, then pads shorter values to match. Trailing whitespace on the last column is trimmed.

What if some rows have more fields than others?

It uses the maximum field count found across all rows. Rows with fewer fields are treated as having empty trailing cells, so the columns still line up.

Does it work for code comments or README tables?

Yes. It is ideal for tidying ASCII tables in README files, aligning trailing code comments, or cleaning up terminal output before pasting it elsewhere.

Text Column Formatter

Align text into clean columns

The text column formatter takes delimited rows — separated by a pipe, comma, semicolon, or tab — and pads each field so the columns line up perfectly in a monospace layout. It is handy for tidying ASCII tables in README files, aligning trailing code comments, and cleaning up command-line output.

How it works

The tool splits every line on your chosen delimiter and trims each field. It then measures the longest value in each column and sets that as the column width. Each value is padded with spaces to its column width — appended for left alignment, prepended for right alignment — and the columns are joined with the gap you specify (minimum one space). Trailing spaces on each line are stripped. Because alignment relies on every character having equal width, the output is shown in a monospace font.

Example

With the delimiter |, left alignment and a 1-space gap, this input:

Name | Role | City
Ada | Engineer | London
Lin | Designer | Berlin

becomes:

Name Role     City
Ada  Engineer London
Lin  Designer Berlin

Each column is widened to its longest value (Engineer sets the second column’s width), so everything lines up. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.