I really like comparison tables on wikipedia but find them hard to navigate.

For example: Comparison of web browsers > General Information

Say I want a web browser for Linux which has been recently updated. I can sort by the “Platform” column, or by “Latest release: Date” but not both.

Sometimes tables can be very wide and/or very tall. Once you get to scrolling it is impossible to see either the row or column headings. So then you can’t tell where you even are in the table. Example: Table of AMD processors Also they can have complex structures with merged headings and content.

Ideally I would like to apply some basic spreadsheet-type operations like hiding rows/columns, filtering, sorting by multiple columns etc. Even if there was a way to easily get the table into an actual spreadsheet that would be helpful. I tried some extensions that export tables to other formats but nothing worked without a lot of cleanup.

Is there some kind of trick or tool or extension that makes these ginormous tables useful? I can’t tell how people even add information to these things, they are so large.

  • @lechatronEnglish
    22•7 months ago

    You can select the whole table and copy/paste it into a spreadsheet program. Then you have all the spreadsheet tools to use. I just tested in excel and Google sheets and both loaded the data correctly.

    edit: Here is that spreadsheet in google sheets.

    • @linuxPIPEpower@discuss.tchncs.deOP
      3•7 months ago

      Thanks for taking the time! But it doesn’t properly reproduce the content.

      As an example, here is the very bottom left corner from the wikipedia:

      there is a merge row with content “5 TSMC N5”. Same height as merged row in next column, with content “Zen 4”.

      But in the google sheet:

      those row containing “5 TSMC N5” have all be un-merged into 14 separate rows. However for some reason “Zen 4” has been properly copied?

      I would need 2+ very large displays to compare the two documents side by side but from what i can see on my 1 small display there are many such inconsistencies. My experience is that cleaning up the data is impossible.