GitHub Flavored Markdown Cheat Sheet: Tables and Task Lists
Tables, task lists, and strikethrough text aren't part of the original Markdown spec - they're extensions from GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM). Markdown Flow supports all of them. Here's a quick reference, with live examples of each.
Tables
| Name | Role | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Alice | Engineer | New York |
| Bob | Designer | London |
Use colons in the separator row to control alignment: :--- for left, :---: for center, ---: for right.
| Left | Center | Right |
|---|---|---|
| A | B | C |
Task Lists
- Draft the outline
- Write the first section
- Add examples
- Publish
Change the space inside the brackets to an x to mark an item complete - no special tool required, just a text edit.
Strikethrough
Wrap text in double tildes to mark it as removed: ~~removed~~.
Autolinks
Paste a bare URL like https://markdown-flow.com and it becomes a clickable link automatically - no need to wrap it in brackets and parentheses.
Putting It Together: A Project Status Update
## Sprint Status
| Task | Owner | Status |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| API endpoints | Priya | Done |
| Frontend polish | Sam | In progress |
- [x] Backend deployed
- [ ] QA sign-off
That block combines a heading, a table, and a task list into a complete status update - exactly the kind of content an AI assistant might generate when you ask it to "summarize this sprint."
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GFM different from regular Markdown? Yes - tables, task lists, strikethrough, and autolinks are GitHub's extensions on top of the original Markdown spec. Not every Markdown renderer supports them, but Markdown Flow does.
Do these features export correctly? Yes - tables become real tables and task lists become real checkboxes in your PDF, DOCX, and HTML exports.
Can I edit a task list after exporting to Word? Checkboxes export as text-based checkbox characters in DOCX, so they display correctly even though they're no longer interactive.
Paste any Markdown with tables or task lists into Markdown Flow to see the full GFM cheat sheet in action.