Creating Pretty Tables in Python with PTable

Creating an output table in Python using PTable is fast and easy. This article introduces the most useful functionalities of PTable, such as adding rows and columns, changing text alignment and floating number format, and clearing data, to get a quick start to make the ideal table in no time.

If this is not enough, here are two detailed tutorials of PTable: http://zetcode.com/python/prettytable/ and https://github.com/jazzband/prettytable

Install PTable in Terminal

pip install ptable

Install PTable in Jupyter kernel

import sys
!{sys.executable} -m pip install ptable

Create an empty table

### Import the package
from prettytable import PrettyTable

### Create a table
table = PrettyTable()
print(table)  # print an empty table

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Edit table by row

table.field_names = ['column1', 'column2']  # add column names
print(table)

+---------+---------+
| column1 | column2 |
+---------+---------+
+---------+---------+

table.add_row([11, 12])  # add a row
table.add_row([21, 22])  # add another row
print(table)

+---------+---------+
| column1 | column2 |
+---------+---------+
|    11   |    12   |
|    21   |    22   |
+---------+---------+

table.del_row(1)  # delete the row with index 1
print(table)

+---------+---------+
| column1 | column2 |
+---------+---------+
|    11   |    12   |
+---------+---------+

Edit table by column

table.add_column('column3', [31.0])  # add a new column
print(table)

+---------+---------+---------+
| column1 | column2 | column3 |
+---------+---------+---------+
|    11   |    12   |   31.0  |
+---------+---------+---------+

Text alignment

table.align['column1'] = 'l'  # 'l', 'c', or 'r'
table.align['column2'] = 'c'
table.align['column3'] = 'r'
print(table)

+---------+---------+---------+
| column1 | column2 | column3 |
+---------+---------+---------+
| 11      |    12   |    31.0 |
+---------+---------+---------+

Floating number format

table.float_format['column3'] = "8.4"  # This is equivalent to '%8.4f' % column_value
print(table)

+---------+---------+----------+
| column1 | column2 |  column3 |
+---------+---------+----------+
| 11      |    12   |  31.0000 |
+---------+---------+----------+

Add title

print(table.get_string(title="Table Title"))

+------------------------------+
|         Table title          |
+---------+---------+----------+
| column1 | column2 |  column3 |
+---------+---------+----------+
| 11      |    12   |  31.0000 |
+---------+---------+----------+

Clear data

table.clear_rows()
print(table)

+---------+---------+---------+
| column1 | column2 | column3 |
+---------+---------+---------+
+---------+---------+---------+