Styles

Craftable provides two families of styles:

• Display/printable styles that render strings for terminals, logs, and docs (used with get_table()).
• Export/document styles that generate files (used with export_table()).

Use display styles when you want immediate, human-readable output (terminal/Markdown/ASCII). Use export styles when you want an artifact like .xlsx or .docx.

Display Styles	Export Styles
NoBorderScreenStyle	XlsxStyle
BasicScreenStyle	OdsStyle
RoundedBorderScreenStyle	OdtStyle
MarkdownStyle	DocxStyle
ASCIIStyle	RtfStyle

Note

The table above was generated using craftable's get_table function. You can view the code in the recipes.

Available styles

NoBorderScreenStyle (default)

Minimal, whitespace-delimited with a simple header separator.

from craftable import get_table

rows = [["Alice", 30], ["Bob", 25]]
print(get_table(rows, header_row=["Name", "Age"]))

Output:

  Name │ Age 
───────┼─────
 Alice │ 30  
 Bob   │ 25  

BasicScreenStyle

Classic box drawing with Unicode characters (│ ─ ┌ ┐ └ ┘ ├ ┤ ┬ ┴ ┼).

from craftable import get_table
from craftable.styles import BasicScreenStyle

rows = [["Alice", 30], ["Bob", 25]]
print(get_table(rows, header_row=["Name", "Age"], style=BasicScreenStyle()))

Output:

┌───────┬─────┐
│  Name │ Age │
├───────┼─────┤
│ Alice │ 30  │
│ Bob   │ 25  │
└───────┴─────┘

RoundedBorderScreenStyle

Rounded corners for a softer look (╭ ╮ ╰ ╯ │ ─).

from craftable import get_table
from craftable.styles import RoundedBorderScreenStyle

rows = [["Alice", 30], ["Bob", 25]]
print(get_table(rows, header_row=["Name", "Age"], style=RoundedBorderScreenStyle()))

Output:

╭───────┬─────╮
│  Name │ Age │
├───────┼─────┤
│ Alice │ 30  │
│ Bob   │ 25  │
╰───────┴─────╯

MarkdownStyle

GitHub-flavored Markdown tables for documentation.

from craftable import get_table
from craftable.styles import MarkdownStyle

rows = [["Alice", 30], ["Bob", 25]]
print(get_table(rows, header_row=["Name", "Age"], style=MarkdownStyle()))

Output:

|  Name | Age |
| ----- | --- |
| Alice | 30  |
| Bob   | 25  |

ASCIIStyle

Plain ASCII borders for terminals and logs.

from craftable import get_table
from craftable.styles import ASCIIStyle

rows = [["Alice", 30], ["Bob", 25]]
print(get_table(rows, header_row=["Name", "Age"], style=ASCIIStyle()))

Output:

+-------+-----+
|  Name | Age |
+-------+-----+
| Alice | 30  |
| Bob   | 25  |
+-------+-----+

Options that affect layout

From get_table:

• table_width: set the maximum width for the entire table
• lazy_end: omit the right border for more compact output
• separate_rows: add a horizontal separator between rows (non-Markdown styles)

From style classes (subclasses of TableStyle):

• cell_padding: style-dependent spacing inside each cell
• min_width: style-dependent minimum column width
• terminal_style: determines whether the maximum width of a table is potentially constrained by the width of the terminal window.

Customizing styles

You can fine-tune the look of your tables either by tweaking an instance of a built‑in style or by creating your own style class that derives from TableStyle.

Option 1: Modify a built‑in style instance

All visual details are exposed as attributes on the style object. You can instantiate a style, change a few attributes, and pass it to get_table.

from craftable import get_table
from craftable.styles import BasicScreenStyle, BoxChars

rows = [["Alice", 30], ["Bob", 25]]

style = BasicScreenStyle()

# Make cells roomier and swap in double-line rules for the header separator
style.cell_padding = 2
style.header_bottom_line = BoxChars.DOUBLE_HORIZONTAL
style.header_bottom_delimiter = BoxChars.DOUBLE_VERTICAL_AND_HORIZONTAL
style.header_bottom_left = BoxChars.DOUBLE_VERTICAL_AND_RIGHT
style.header_bottom_right = BoxChars.DOUBLE_VERTICAL_AND_LEFT

# Use double verticals between values
style.values_delimiter = BoxChars.DOUBLE_VERTICAL
style.values_left = BoxChars.DOUBLE_VERTICAL
style.values_right = BoxChars.DOUBLE_VERTICAL

print(get_table(rows, header_row=["Name", "Age"], style=style))

Tip

Start from the style closest to what you want (e.g., BasicScreenStyle, RoundedBorderScreenStyle, or MarkdownStyle) and override only a handful of attributes.

All border characters come from BoxChars (a small enum of Unicode box‑drawing symbols). You can also use plain strings like "|" or "-" if you prefer pure ASCII.

Option 2: Create your own style class

For full control, subclass TableStyle and set the attributes you care about in __init__. Here’s a minimal ASCII style that uses +, -, and |.

from craftable import get_table
from craftable.styles import TableStyle, BoxChars

class DoubleBorderStyle(TableStyle):
    """Bold outer borders with double-line rules and single-line interior."""

    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()

        # Only override what makes this style unique
        # Use double lines for outer borders (horizontal and vertical)
        self.header_top_line = BoxChars.DOUBLE_HORIZONTAL
        self.values_bottom_line = BoxChars.DOUBLE_HORIZONTAL
        self.header_left = BoxChars.DOUBLE_VERTICAL
        self.header_right = BoxChars.DOUBLE_VERTICAL
        self.values_left = BoxChars.DOUBLE_VERTICAL
        self.values_right = BoxChars.DOUBLE_VERTICAL

        # Corners: pure double lines
        self.header_top_left = BoxChars.DOUBLE_DOWN_AND_RIGHT
        self.header_top_right = BoxChars.DOUBLE_DOWN_AND_LEFT
        self.values_bottom_left = BoxChars.DOUBLE_UP_AND_RIGHT
        self.values_bottom_right = BoxChars.DOUBLE_UP_AND_LEFT

        # Intersections where double borders meet single interior lines
        self.header_top_delimiter = BoxChars.DOUBLE_HORIZONTAL_AND_SINGLE_DOWN
        self.header_bottom_left = BoxChars.SINGLE_VERTICAL_AND_DOUBLE_RIGHT
        self.header_bottom_right = BoxChars.SINGLE_VERTICAL_AND_DOUBLE_LEFT
        self.values_bottom_delimiter = BoxChars.DOUBLE_HORIZONTAL_AND_SINGLE_UP

rows = [["Alice", 30], ["Bob", 25]]
print(get_table(rows, header_row=["Name", "Age"], style=DoubleBorderStyle()))

Output:

╔═══════╤═════╗
║  Name │ Age ║
╟───────┼─────╢
║ Alice │ 30  ║
║ Bob   │ 25  ║
╚═══════╧═════╝

Notes

• You only need to override the attributes that make your style unique. In this example, we changed just the outer borders (8 attributes) and inherited ~20+ other values from TableStyle.
• If you want to build on an existing style instead of TableStyle, subclass it directly (e.g., class MyStyle(BasicScreenStyle)).
• Markdown layout is handled by MarkdownStyle with align_char=":" and terminal_style=False. If you need a Markdown variant, subclass MarkdownStyle instead and tweak only what you need.

Recipe: Compact/Dense tables

If you want maximum information density, reduce padding on a base style:

from craftable import get_table
from craftable.styles import BasicScreenStyle

rows = [["Alice", 30], ["Bob", 25]]

dense = BasicScreenStyle()
dense.cell_padding = 0
dense.min_width = 1
print(get_table(rows, header_row=["Name", "Age"], style=dense))

Style Code References

For class-level APIs like TableStyle and BoxChars, see the Text Style API and Document Style API.

Document / Export Styles

Craftable also includes styles for writing files instead of rendering terminal text. Use these with export_table().

XlsxStyle

Excel workbook output (.xlsx, binary). Best for spreadsheets and BI tools.

OdsStyle

OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods, binary), compatible with LibreOffice and others.

OdtStyle

OpenDocument Text (.odt, binary) for word processors like LibreOffice Writer.

DocxStyle

Microsoft Word document (.docx, binary). Good for formal reports.

RtfStyle

Rich Text Format (.rtf, text). Portable with broad editor support.

Example:

from craftable import export_table
from craftable.adapters import from_dicts
from craftable.styles import XlsxStyle

rows, headers = from_dicts([
  {"name": "Alice", "age": 30},
  {"name": "Bob", "age": None},
])

export_table(
  rows,
  header_row=headers,
  style=XlsxStyle(),
  file="people.xlsx",
  none_text="—",
)

Notes: - Some document styles provide a dedicated writer; export_table() will use it when a file is supplied. - If a style renders to bytes, export_table() writes in binary mode for path-like file values. - Non-terminal styles typically set terminal_style=False (terminal width detection is skipped).