HTML table to reStructuredText grid table API

Code examples

These examples send the sample as multipart/form-data and save the returned bytes unchanged. Set TABLECONVERT_API_KEY in your environment.

curl --fail-with-body --max-time 40 \
  'https://api.tableconvert.com/v2/convert/html-to-restructuredtext' \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $TABLECONVERT_API_KEY" \
  --form-string 'data=<table>
    <tr>
        <td>package</td>
        <td>version</td>
        <td>license</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>ExampleSDK</td>
        <td>2.1</td>
        <td>MIT</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>ExampleCLI</td>
        <td>1.4</td>
        <td>Apache</td>
    </tr>
</table>' \
  --form-string 'output[style]=+++-,+++=,+++-,+++-,|' \
  --form-string 'output[forceSep]=false' \
  --form-string 'output[align]=l' \
  --output 'html-to-restructuredtext.rst'

import os
from pathlib import Path
import requests

endpoint = "https://api.tableconvert.com/v2/convert/html-to-restructuredtext"
headers = {"Authorization": "Bearer " + os.environ["TABLECONVERT_API_KEY"]}
fields = {
    "data": (None, "<table>\n    <tr>\n        <td>package</td>\n        <td>version</td>\n        <td>license</td>\n    </tr>\n    <tr>\n        <td>ExampleSDK</td>\n        <td>2.1</td>\n        <td>MIT</td>\n    </tr>\n    <tr>\n        <td>ExampleCLI</td>\n        <td>1.4</td>\n        <td>Apache</td>\n    </tr>\n</table>"),
    "output[style]": (None, "+++-,+++=,+++-,+++-,|"),
    "output[forceSep]": (None, "false"),
    "output[align]": (None, "l"),
}

response = requests.post(endpoint, headers=headers, files=fields, timeout=40)
response.raise_for_status()
Path("html-to-restructuredtext.rst").write_bytes(response.content)

import { writeFile } from "node:fs/promises";

const form = new FormData();
form.set("data", "<table>\n    <tr>\n        <td>package</td>\n        <td>version</td>\n        <td>license</td>\n    </tr>\n    <tr>\n        <td>ExampleSDK</td>\n        <td>2.1</td>\n        <td>MIT</td>\n    </tr>\n    <tr>\n        <td>ExampleCLI</td>\n        <td>1.4</td>\n        <td>Apache</td>\n    </tr>\n</table>");
form.set("output[style]", "+++-,+++=,+++-,+++-,|");
form.set("output[forceSep]", "false");
form.set("output[align]", "l");

const response = await fetch("https://api.tableconvert.com/v2/convert/html-to-restructuredtext", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { Authorization: "Bearer " + process.env.TABLECONVERT_API_KEY },
  body: form,
  signal: AbortSignal.timeout(40_000),
});
if (!response.ok) {
  throw new Error("HTTP " + response.status + ": " + await response.text());
}
await writeFile("html-to-restructuredtext.rst", Buffer.from(await response.arrayBuffer()));

Request parameters

This importer extracts table, row and cell contents from HTML markup. It is a table-data converter, not a whole-page browser renderer.

Send one source: data, file, or url. The examples below use the source mode appropriate for this format.

Output options

Generate a reStructuredText-style grid table for Sphinx or Docutils source. The table is plain text with width-sensitive borders.

Conversion rules

How the input is read

• Supply an HTML table containing explicit tr and th/td elements.
• Tags inside cells are stripped; CSS, links, images and page layout are not preserved as visual elements.
• Simplify colspan, rowspan and nested tables before conversion; the parser extracts cells rather than reconstructing browser layout.
• Multiple table elements are separate extracted tables; confirm which table your request converts.

How the output is written

• A header separator distinguishes the first row from body rows.
• Use a monospaced source editor and inspect multiline or wide Unicode cells.
• Test the grid with the actual Docutils/Sphinx renderer before publishing.

When to use this API

Responses and errors

Check the response before retrying. A new HTTP request is a new conversion and may use credits again.

Limits, billing and versions

Local previews accept up to 200 KB. The current API implementation allows one uploaded file up to 50 MiB, limits each multipart text field to 1 MiB, and gives v2 conversion tasks a 30-second deadline. Deployment limits may be stricter. Read the returned error before retrying; some parser or renderer failures return HTTP 500.

Live calls follow the API credit policy. Failed conversions are refunded; a completed conversion is not undone if the download connection later fails.

References and format specifications

Format references explain the underlying syntax. The conversion rules and samples above describe TableConvert’s implementation.

• html.spec.whatwg.org
• docutils.sourceforge.io