DEV Community: Olayiwola Akinnagbe

AI Table Generator Features Worth Actually Using

Olayiwola Akinnagbe — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

If you search for an AI table generator, you will find a lot of tools
that generate something vaguely table-shaped and call it done. The
output is usually wrong in ways that are annoying to fix: misaligned
columns, no column types, no export that is actually usable.

The features worth caring about in a table builder are less about AI
and more about the fundamentals: does it understand what kind of data
is in each column, does the export look right, and does it stay out
of the way while you work?

Column types are the first thing to look for. A tool that treats every
cell as a string will right-align a currency column in the output or
format 84.1 as 84.10000000001. A tool that understands column types (Text, Number, Currency, Percentage, Date) will format values correctly
and generate proper alignment in LaTeX exports automatically.

Export quality is the second thing. A PDF export that looks like a
screenshot of a spreadsheet is not useful. The output should be clean
enough to hand to a client or include in a paper without manual cleanup.
LaTeX export should generate a complete tabular environment, not just
the cell values separated by ampersands.

Smart paste is the third thing most people discover late. If you have
data in Excel or Google Sheets, you should be able to copy the cells
and paste directly into a table builder. This works because Excel writes
tab-separated data to the clipboard when you copy a range. A good table
builder reads that and reconstructs the table automatically.

I built Tablesmit with all of this in mind. It is free, open source,
and MIT licensed.

Try it at tablesmit.com.

This post originally appeared on the Tablesmit Blog at tablesmit.com/blog/ai-table-generator-features. Tablesmit is a free, open source table builder. Export to PDF, Excel, LaTeX, CSV, PNG. No account required. Try it at tablesmit.com.

How to Resize Table Columns and Rows Online

Olayiwola Akinnagbe — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 13:35:00 +0000

Resizing table columns should feel immediate. You hover over the
column border, the cursor changes to a resize indicator, you drag,
and the column changes width. The columns around it adjust
predictably. Nothing else moves.

In practice this is harder to implement correctly than it sounds.
The naive approach, updating the column width on every mousemove event, causes layout recalculations on every pixel of drag movement.
On a table with many columns this produces noticeable lag, especially
on lower-powered devices.

The implementation in Tablesmit uses requestAnimationFrame with a
ghost line indicator. The ghost line, a vertical line that follows the cursor during drag, shows where the column border will land
without actually moving it. The column width only commits on mouseup.
This means the layout recalculates once, at the end of the drag,
instead of hundreds of times during it. The result is 60fps drag
performance regardless of table size.

To resize a column: hover over the right border of the column header
until the cursor changes to a horizontal resize indicator, then click
and drag. Release to commit the width.

Column widths carry through to PDF and PNG exports. The table in
the export looks exactly as it does in the editor, with the column
widths you set.

Row height is automatic based on content. Cells wrap text when the
content is longer than the column width.

Free, no account, MIT licensed. tablesmit.com

This post originally appeared on the Tablesmit Blog at tablesmit.com/blog/how-to-resize-table-columns-rows. Tablesmit is a free, open source table builder. Export to PDF, Excel, LaTeX, CSV, PNG. No account required. Try it at tablesmit.com.

How to Export a Table to LaTeX: Complete Guide

Olayiwola Akinnagbe — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 13:29:00 +0000

The standard options for getting a table into LaTeX are: write the
tabular syntax by hand, use Tables Generator, or build it in Excel
and use a converter. All three have the same problem: the output
requires manual editing before it is actually usable.

Writing tabular by hand is slow. You count ampersands, check that
every row is consistent, escape special characters manually, and
debug alignment by compiling. For a ten-column table with twenty
rows this takes longer than it should.

Tables Generator is faster but the column alignment control is
limited. It does not derive alignment from data type: you set it
manually for each column.

Excel converters are inconsistent. The column spec is often wrong
and special character escaping is unreliable.

Tablesmit solves this by deriving the LaTeX output from the visual
table you build. Here is exactly what the export generates:

Column alignment from column type: Text gets l, Number and
Currency and Percentage get r. You do not set this manually.

Special character escaping: %, $, &, _, ^, {, } are all escaped
in the output. If your data contains any of these, the export
handles it.

Caption: your caption field maps to \caption{}. It appears in the
right position in the generated block.

The complete output:

\begin{table}[h]
\centering
\caption{Your caption here}
\begin{tabular}{l r r}
\hline
Label & Value & Change \
\hline
Revenue & 1,240 & 12.4\% \
Expenses & 980 & 8.1\% \
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

Paste it straight into your .tex file.

Free, no account, MIT licensed. tablesmit.com

This post originally appeared on the Tablesmit Blog at tablesmit.com/blog/how-to-export-table-to-latex. Tablesmit is a free, open source table builder. Export to PDF, Excel, LaTeX, CSV, PNG. No account required. Try it at tablesmit.com.