md058.md

MD058 - Tables should be surrounded by blank lines

Tags: table

Aliases: blanks-around-tables

Fixable: Some violations can be fixed by tooling

This rule is triggered when tables are either not preceded or not followed by a blank line:

Some text
| Header | Header |
| ------ | ------ |
| Cell   | Cell   |
> Blockquote

To fix violations of this rule, ensure that all tables have a blank line both before and after (except when the table is at the very beginning or end of the document):

Some text

| Header | Header |
| ------ | ------ |
| Cell   | Cell   |

> Blockquote

Note that text immediately following a table (i.e., not separated by an empty line) is treated as part of the table (per the specification) and will not trigger this rule:

| Header | Header |
| ------ | ------ |
| Cell   | Cell   |
This text is part of the table and the next line is blank

Some text

Rationale: In addition to aesthetic reasons, some parsers will incorrectly parse tables that don't have blank lines before and after them.