Datatables

DataTables is a plug-in for the jQuery Javascript library. It is a highly flexible tool, build upon the foundations of progressive enhancement, that adds all of these advanced features to any HTML table.

Zero configuration

DataTables has most features enabled by default, so all you need to do to use it with your own ables is to call the construction function: $().DataTable();.

Name Position Office Age Start date Salary
Tiger Nixon System Architect Edinburgh 61 2011/04/25 $320,800
Garrett Winters Accountant Tokyo 63 2011/07/25 $170,750
Ashton Cox Junior Technical Author San Francisco 66 2009/01/12 $86,000
Cedric Kelly Senior Javascript Developer Edinburgh 22 2012/03/29 $433,060
Airi Satou Accountant Tokyo 33 2008/11/28 $162,700
Brielle Williamson Integration Specialist New York 61 2012/12/02 $372,000
Herrod Chandler Sales Assistant San Francisco 59 2012/08/06 $137,500
Rhona Davidson Integration Specialist Tokyo 55 2010/10/14 $327,900
Colleen Hurst Javascript Developer San Francisco 39 2009/09/15 $205,500
Sonya Frost Software Engineer Edinburgh 23 2008/12/13 $103,600
Jena Gaines Office Manager London 30 2008/12/19 $90,560
Quinn Flynn Support Lead Edinburgh 22 2013/03/03 $342,000
Charde Marshall Regional Director San Francisco 36 2008/10/16 $470,600
Haley Kennedy Senior Marketing Designer London 43 2012/12/18 $313,500
Tatyana Fitzpatrick Regional Director London 19 2010/03/17 $385,750
Michael Silva Marketing Designer London 66 2012/11/27 $198,500
Paul Byrd Chief Financial Officer (CFO) New York 64 2010/06/09 $725,000
Gloria Little Systems Administrator New York 59 2009/04/10 $237,500
Bradley Greer Software Engineer London 41 2012/10/13 $132,000
Dai Rios Personnel Lead Edinburgh 35 2012/09/26 $217,500
Jenette Caldwell Development Lead New York 30 2011/09/03 $345,000
Yuri Berry Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) New York 40 2009/06/25 $675,000
Caesar Vance Pre-Sales Support New York 21 2011/12/12 $106,450
Doris Wilder Sales Assistant Sidney 23 2010/09/20 $85,600
Angelica Ramos Chief Executive Officer (CEO) London 47 2009/10/09 $1,200,000
Gavin Joyce Developer Edinburgh 42 2010/12/22 $92,575
Jennifer Chang Regional Director Singapore 28 2010/11/14 $357,650
Brenden Wagner Software Engineer San Francisco 28 2011/06/07 $206,850
Fiona Green Chief Operating Officer (COO) San Francisco 48 2010/03/11 $850,000
Shou Itou Regional Marketing Tokyo 20 2011/08/14 $163,000
Michelle House Integration Specialist Sidney 37 2011/06/02 $95,400
Suki Burks Developer London 53 2009/10/22 $114,500
Prescott Bartlett Technical Author London 27 2011/05/07 $145,000
Gavin Cortez Team Leader San Francisco 22 2008/10/26 $235,500
Martena Mccray Post-Sales support Edinburgh 46 2011/03/09 $324,050
Unity Butler Marketing Designer San Francisco 47 2009/12/09 $85,675
Howard Hatfield Office Manager San Francisco 51 2008/12/16 $164,500
Hope Fuentes Secretary San Francisco 41 2010/02/12 $109,850
Vivian Harrell Financial Controller San Francisco 62 2009/02/14 $452,500
Timothy Mooney Office Manager London 37 2008/12/11 $136,200
Jackson Bradshaw Director New York 65 2008/09/26 $645,750
Olivia Liang Support Engineer Singapore 64 2011/02/03 $234,500
Bruno Nash Software Engineer London 38 2011/05/03 $163,500
Sakura Yamamoto Support Engineer Tokyo 37 2009/08/19 $139,575
Thor Walton Developer New York 61 2013/08/11 $98,540
Finn Camacho Support Engineer San Francisco 47 2009/07/07 $87,500
Serge Baldwin Data Coordinator Singapore 64 2012/04/09 $138,575
Zenaida Frank Software Engineer New York 63 2010/01/04 $125,250
Zorita Serrano Software Engineer San Francisco 56 2012/06/01 $115,000
Jennifer Acosta Junior Javascript Developer Edinburgh 43 2013/02/01 $75,650
Cara Stevens Sales Assistant New York 46 2011/12/06 $145,600
Hermione Butler Regional Director London 47 2011/03/21 $356,250
Lael Greer Systems Administrator London 21 2009/02/27 $103,500
Jonas Alexander Developer San Francisco 30 2010/07/14 $86,500
Shad Decker Regional Director Edinburgh 51 2008/11/13 $183,000
Michael Bruce Javascript Developer Singapore 29 2011/06/27 $183,000
Donna Snider Customer Support New York 27 2011/01/25 $112,000
Name Position Office Age Start date Salary

Feature enable / disable

Disabling features that you don't wish to use for a particular table is easily done by setting a variable in the initialisation object. The full list of available options is available in the DataTables reference.

Name Position Office Age Start date Salary
Tiger Nixon System Architect Edinburgh 61 2011/04/25 $320,800
Garrett Winters Accountant Tokyo 63 2011/07/25 $170,750
Ashton Cox Junior Technical Author San Francisco 66 2009/01/12 $86,000
Cedric Kelly Senior Javascript Developer Edinburgh 22 2012/03/29 $433,060
Tatyana Fitzpatrick Regional Director London 19 2010/03/17 $385,750
Michael Silva Marketing Designer London 66 2012/11/27 $198,500
Paul Byrd Chief Financial Officer (CFO) New York 64 2010/06/09 $725,000
Gloria Little Systems Administrator New York 59 2009/04/10 $237,500
Bradley Greer Software Engineer London 41 2012/10/13 $132,000
Dai Rios Personnel Lead Edinburgh 35 2012/09/26 $217,500
Jenette Caldwell Development Lead New York 30 2011/09/03 $345,000
Yuri Berry Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) New York 40 2009/06/25 $675,000
Caesar Vance Pre-Sales Support New York 21 2011/12/12 $106,450
Doris Wilder Sales Assistant Sidney 23 2010/09/20 $85,600
Angelica Ramos Chief Executive Officer (CEO) London 47 2009/10/09 $1,200,000
Gavin Joyce Developer Edinburgh 42 2010/12/22 $92,575
Name Position Office Age Start date Salary

Default ordering (sorting)

With DataTables you can alter the ordering characteristics of the table at initialisation time. Using the order initialisation parameter, you can set the table to display the data in exactly the order that you want.

Name Position Office Age Start date Salary
Tiger Nixon System Architect Edinburgh 61 2011/04/25 $320,800
Garrett Winters Accountant Tokyo 63 2011/07/25 $170,750
Ashton Cox Junior Technical Author San Francisco 66 2009/01/12 $86,000
Gavin Joyce Developer Edinburgh 42 2010/12/22 $92,575
Jennifer Chang Regional Director Singapore 28 2010/11/14 $357,650
Brenden Wagner Software Engineer San Francisco 28 2011/06/07 $206,850
Fiona Green Chief Operating Officer (COO) San Francisco 48 2010/03/11 $850,000
Gavin Cortez Team Leader San Francisco 22 2008/10/26 $235,500
Martena Mccray Post-Sales support Edinburgh 46 2011/03/09 $324,050
Unity Butler Marketing Designer San Francisco 47 2009/12/09 $85,675
Howard Hatfield Office Manager San Francisco 51 2008/12/16 $164,500
Hope Fuentes Secretary San Francisco 41 2010/02/12 $109,850
Name Position Office Age Start date Salary

Multi-column ordering

DataTables allows ordering by multiple columns at the same time, which can be activated in a number of different ways

Name Position Office Age Start date Salary
Tiger Nixon System Architect Edinburgh 61 2011/04/25 $320,800
Garrett Winters Accountant Tokyo 63 2011/07/25 $170,750
Ashton Cox Junior Technical Author San Francisco 66 2009/01/12 $86,000
Gavin Joyce Developer Edinburgh 42 2010/12/22 $92,575
Jennifer Chang Regional Director Singapore 28 2010/11/14 $357,650
Brenden Wagner Software Engineer San Francisco 28 2011/06/07 $206,850
Fiona Green Chief Operating Officer (COO) San Francisco 48 2010/03/11 $850,000
Gavin Cortez Team Leader San Francisco 22 2008/10/26 $235,500
Martena Mccray Post-Sales support Edinburgh 46 2011/03/09 $324,050
Unity Butler Marketing Designer San Francisco 47 2009/12/09 $85,675
Howard Hatfield Office Manager San Francisco 51 2008/12/16 $164,500
Hope Fuentes Secretary San Francisco 41 2010/02/12 $109,850
Name Position Office Age Start date Salary

Hidden columns

DataTables allows ordering by multiple columns at the same time, which can be activated in a number of

There are times when you might find it useful to display only a sub-set of the information that was available in the original table. For example you might want to reduce the amount of data shown on screen to make it clearer for the user (consider also using the Responsive extension for this). This is done through the columns.visible column option.

Name Position Office Age Start date Salary
Tiger Nixon System Architect Edinburgh 61 2011/04/25 $320,800
Garrett Winters Accountant Tokyo 63 2011/07/25 $170,750
Ashton Cox Junior Technical Author San Francisco 66 2009/01/12 $86,000
Gavin Joyce Developer Edinburgh 42 2010/12/22 $92,575
Jennifer Chang Regional Director Singapore 28 2010/11/14 $357,650
Brenden Wagner Software Engineer San Francisco 28 2011/06/07 $206,850
Fiona Green Chief Operating Officer (COO) San Francisco 48 2010/03/11 $850,000
Gavin Cortez Team Leader San Francisco 22 2008/10/26 $235,500
Martena Mccray Post-Sales support Edinburgh 46 2011/03/09 $324,050
Unity Butler Marketing Designer San Francisco 47 2009/12/09 $85,675
Howard Hatfield Office Manager San Francisco 51 2008/12/16 $164,500
Hope Fuentes Secretary San Francisco 41 2010/02/12 $109,850
Name Position Office Age Start date Salary

Complex headers (rowspan and colspan)

When using tables to display data, you will often wish to display column information in groups. DataTables fully supports colspan androwspan in the table's header, assigning the required order listeners to the TH element suitable for that column.

Name HR Information Contact
Position Salary Office Extn. E-mail
Tiger Nixon System Architect $320,800 Edinburgh 5421 t.nixon@datatables.net
Garrett Winters Accountant $170,750 Tokyo 8422 g.winters@datatables.net
Ashton Cox Junior Technical Author $86,000 San Francisco 1562 a.cox@datatables.net
Cedric Kelly Senior Javascript Developer $433,060 Edinburgh 6224 c.kelly@datatables.net
Airi Satou Accountant $162,700 Tokyo 5407 a.satou@datatables.net
Brielle Williamson Integration Specialist $372,000 New York 4804 b.williamson@datatables.net
Herrod Chandler Sales Assistant $137,500 San Francisco 9608 h.chandler@datatables.net
Rhona Davidson Integration Specialist $327,900 Tokyo 6200 r.davidson@datatables.net
Colleen Hurst Javascript Developer $205,500 San Francisco 2360 c.hurst@datatables.net
Sonya Frost Software Engineer $103,600 Edinburgh 1667 s.frost@datatables.net
Jena Gaines Office Manager $90,560 London 3814 j.gaines@datatables.net
Quinn Flynn Support Lead $342,000 Edinburgh 9497 q.flynn@datatables.net
Charde Marshall Regional Director $470,600 San Francisco 6741 c.marshall@datatables.net
Haley Kennedy Senior Marketing Designer $313,500 London 3597 h.kennedy@datatables.net
Tatyana Fitzpatrick Regional Director $385,750 London 1965 t.fitzpatrick@datatables.net
Michael Silva Marketing Designer $198,500 London 1581 m.silva@datatables.net
Paul Byrd Chief Financial Officer (CFO) $725,000 New York 3059 p.byrd@datatables.net
Gloria Little Systems Administrator $237,500 New York 1721 g.little@datatables.net
Name Position Salary Office Extn. E-mail

DOM positioning

When customising DataTables for your own usage, you might find that the default position of the feature elements (filter input etc) is not quite to your liking. To address this issue DataTables takes inspiration from the CSS 3 Advanced Layout Module and provides thedom initialisation parameter which can be set to indicate where you wish particular features to appear in the DOM. You can also specify div wrapping containers (with an id and / or class) to provide complete layout flexibility.

Name Position Office Age Start date Salary
Tiger Nixon System Architect Edinburgh 61 2011/04/25 $320,800
Garrett Winters Accountant Tokyo 63 2011/07/25 $170,750
Ashton Cox Junior Technical Author San Francisco 66 2009/01/12 $86,000
Cedric Kelly Senior Javascript Developer Edinburgh 22 2012/03/29 $433,060
Airi Satou Accountant Tokyo 33 2008/11/28 $162,700
Brielle Williamson Integration Specialist New York 61 2012/12/02 $372,000
Herrod Chandler Sales Assistant San Francisco 59 2012/08/06 $137,500
Rhona Davidson Integration Specialist Tokyo 55 2010/10/14 $327,900
Colleen Hurst Javascript Developer San Francisco 39 2009/09/15 $205,500
Sonya Frost Software Engineer Edinburgh 23 2008/12/13 $103,600
Jena Gaines Office Manager London 30 2008/12/19 $90,560
Quinn Flynn Support Lead Edinburgh 22 2013/03/03 $342,000
Name Position Office Age Start date Salary

Alternative pagination

The default page control presented by DataTables (forward and backward buttons with up to 7 page numbers in-between) is fine for most situations, but there are cases where you may wish to customise the options presented to the end user. This is done through DataTables' extensible pagination mechanism, the pagingType option.

Name Position Office Age Start date Salary
Tiger Nixon System Architect Edinburgh 61 2011/04/25 $320,800
Garrett Winters Accountant Tokyo 63 2011/07/25 $170,750
Ashton Cox Junior Technical Author San Francisco 66 2009/01/12 $86,000
Cedric Kelly Senior Javascript Developer Edinburgh 22 2012/03/29 $433,060
Airi Satou Accountant Tokyo 33 2008/11/28 $162,700
Brielle Williamson Integration Specialist New York 61 2012/12/02 $372,000
Herrod Chandler Sales Assistant San Francisco 59 2012/08/06 $137,500
Rhona Davidson Integration Specialist Tokyo 55 2010/10/14 $327,900
Colleen Hurst Javascript Developer San Francisco 39 2009/09/15 $205,500
Sonya Frost Software Engineer Edinburgh 23 2008/12/13 $103,600
Jena Gaines Office Manager London 30 2008/12/19 $90,560
Quinn Flynn Support Lead Edinburgh 22 2013/03/03 $342,000
Name Position Office Age Start date Salary

Scroll - vertical

This example shows the DataTables table body scrolling in the vertical direction. This can generally be seen as an alternative method to pagination for displaying a large table in a fairly small vertical area, and as such pagination has been disabled here (note that this is not mandatory, it will work just fine with pagination enabled as well!).

Name Position Office Age Start date Salary
Tiger Nixon System Architect Edinburgh 61 2011/04/25 $320,800
Garrett Winters Accountant Tokyo 63 2011/07/25 $170,750
Ashton Cox Junior Technical Author San Francisco 66 2009/01/12 $86,000
Cedric Kelly Senior Javascript Developer Edinburgh 22 2012/03/29 $433,060
Airi Satou Accountant Tokyo 33 2008/11/28 $162,700
Brielle Williamson Integration Specialist New York 61 2012/12/02 $372,000
Herrod Chandler Sales Assistant San Francisco 59 2012/08/06 $137,500
Rhona Davidson Integration Specialist Tokyo 55 2010/10/14 $327,900
Colleen Hurst Javascript Developer San Francisco 39 2009/09/15 $205,500
Sonya Frost Software Engineer Edinburgh 23 2008/12/13 $103,600
Jena Gaines Office Manager London 30 2008/12/19 $90,560
Quinn Flynn Support Lead Edinburgh 22 2013/03/03 $342,000
Name Position Office Age Start date Salary

Scroll - vertical, dynamic height

This example shows a vertically scrolling DataTable that makes use of the CSS3 vh unit in order to dynamically resize the viewport based on the browser window height. The vh unit is effectively a percentage of the browser window height. So the 50vh used in this example is 50% of the window height. The viewport size will update dynamically as the window is resized.

Name Position Office Age Start date Salary
Tiger Nixon System Architect Edinburgh 61 2011/04/25 $320,800
Garrett Winters Accountant Tokyo 63 2011/07/25 $170,750
Ashton Cox Junior Technical Author San Francisco 66 2009/01/12 $86,000
Cedric Kelly Senior Javascript Developer Edinburgh 22 2012/03/29 $433,060
Airi Satou Accountant Tokyo 33 2008/11/28 $162,700
Brielle Williamson Integration Specialist New York 61 2012/12/02 $372,000
Herrod Chandler Sales Assistant San Francisco 59 2012/08/06 $137,500
Rhona Davidson Integration Specialist Tokyo 55 2010/10/14 $327,900
Colleen Hurst Javascript Developer San Francisco 39 2009/09/15 $205,500
Sonya Frost Software Engineer Edinburgh 23 2008/12/13 $103,600
Jena Gaines Office Manager London 30 2008/12/19 $90,560
Quinn Flynn Support Lead Edinburgh 22 2013/03/03 $342,000
Name Position Office Age Start date Salary

Scroll - horizontal

DataTables has the ability to show tables with horizontal scrolling, which is very useful for when you have a wide table, but want to constrain it to a limited horizontal display area. To enable x-scrolling simply set thescrollX parameter to be whatever you want the container wrapper's width to be (this should be 100% in almost all cases with the width being constrained by the container element).

First name Last name Position Office Age Start date Salary Extn. E-mail
Tiger Nixon System Architect Edinburgh 61 2011/04/25 $320,800 5421 t.nixon@datatables.net
Garrett Winters Accountant Tokyo 63 2011/07/25 $170,750 8422 g.winters@datatables.net
Ashton Cox Junior Technical Author San Francisco 66 2009/01/12 $86,000 1562 a.cox@datatables.net
Cedric Kelly Senior Javascript Developer Edinburgh 22 2012/03/29 $433,060 6224 c.kelly@datatables.net
Airi Satou Accountant Tokyo 33 2008/11/28 $162,700 5407 a.satou@datatables.net
Brielle Williamson Integration Specialist New York 61 2012/12/02 $372,000 4804 b.williamson@datatables.net
Herrod Chandler Sales Assistant San Francisco 59 2012/08/06 $137,500 9608 h.chandler@datatables.net
Rhona Davidson Integration Specialist Tokyo 55 2010/10/14 $327,900 6200 r.davidson@datatables.net
Colleen Hurst Javascript Developer San Francisco 39 2009/09/15 $205,500 2360 c.hurst@datatables.net
Sonya Frost Software Engineer Edinburgh 23 2008/12/13 $103,600 1667 s.frost@datatables.net
Jena Gaines Office Manager London 30 2008/12/19 $90,560 3814 j.gaines@datatables.net
Quinn Flynn Support Lead Edinburgh 22 2013/03/03 $342,000 9497 q.flynn@datatables.net
Charde Marshall Regional Director San Francisco 36 2008/10/16 $470,600 6741 c.marshall@datatables.net
Haley Kennedy Senior Marketing Designer London 43 2012/12/18 $313,500 3597 h.kennedy@datatables.net

Scroll - horizontal and vertical

In this example you can see DataTables doing both horizontal and vertical scrolling at the same time. Note also that pagination is enabled in this example, and the scrolling accounts for this.

First name Last name Position Office Age Start date Salary Extn. E-mail
Tiger Nixon System Architect Edinburgh 61 2011/04/25 $320,800 5421 t.nixon@datatables.net
Garrett Winters Accountant Tokyo 63 2011/07/25 $170,750 8422 g.winters@datatables.net
Ashton Cox Junior Technical Author San Francisco 66 2009/01/12 $86,000 1562 a.cox@datatables.net
Cedric Kelly Senior Javascript Developer Edinburgh 22 2012/03/29 $433,060 6224 c.kelly@datatables.net
Airi Satou Accountant Tokyo 33 2008/11/28 $162,700 5407 a.satou@datatables.net
Brielle Williamson Integration Specialist New York 61 2012/12/02 $372,000 4804 b.williamson@datatables.net
Herrod Chandler Sales Assistant San Francisco 59 2012/08/06 $137,500 9608 h.chandler@datatables.net
Rhona Davidson Integration Specialist Tokyo 55 2010/10/14 $327,900 6200 r.davidson@datatables.net
Colleen Hurst Javascript Developer San Francisco 39 2009/09/15 $205,500 2360 c.hurst@datatables.net
Sonya Frost Software Engineer Edinburgh 23 2008/12/13 $103,600 1667 s.frost@datatables.net
Jena Gaines Office Manager London 30 2008/12/19 $90,560 3814 j.gaines@datatables.net
Quinn Flynn Support Lead Edinburgh 22 2013/03/03 $342,000 9497 q.flynn@datatables.net
Charde Marshall Regional Director San Francisco 36 2008/10/16 $470,600 6741 c.marshall@datatables.net
Haley Kennedy Senior Marketing Designer London 43 2012/12/18 $313,500 3597 h.kennedy@datatables.net

Language - Comma decimal place

A dot (.) is used to mark the decimal place in Javascript, however, many parts of the world use a comma (,) and other characters such as the Unicode decimal separator () or a dash (-) are often used to show the decimal place in a displayed number.

Name Position Office Age Start date Salary
Tiger Nixon System Architect Edinburgh 61 2011/04/25 $320,800
Garrett Winters Accountant Tokyo 63 2011/07/25 $170,750
Ashton Cox Junior Technical Author San Francisco 66 2009/01/12 $86,000
Cedric Kelly Senior Javascript Developer Edinburgh 22 2012/03/29 $433060
Airi Satou Accountant Tokyo 33 2008/11/28 $162,700
Brielle Williamson Integration Specialist New York 61 2012/12/02 $372,000
Herrod Chandler Sales Assistant San Francisco 59 2012/08/06 $137,500
Rhona Davidson Integration Specialist Tokyo 55 2010/10/14 $327,900
Colleen Hurst Javascript Developer San Francisco 39 2009/09/15 $205,500
Sonya Frost Software Engineer Edinburgh 23 2008/12/13 $103,600
Jena Gaines Office Manager London 30 2008/12/19 $90,560
Quinn Flynn Support Lead Edinburgh 22 2013/03/03 $342,000
Name Position Office Age Start date Salary

Language options

Changing the language information displayed by DataTables is as simple as passing in a language object to the DataTable constructor. This example shows a different set of English string being used, rather than the defaults.

Name Position Office Age Start date Salary
Tiger Nixon System Architect Edinburgh 61 2011/04/25 $320,800
Garrett Winters Accountant Tokyo 63 2011/07/25 $170,750
Ashton Cox Junior Technical Author San Francisco 66 2009/01/12 $86,000
Cedric Kelly Senior Javascript Developer Edinburgh 22 2012/03/29 $433060
Airi Satou Accountant Tokyo 33 2008/11/28 $162,700
Brielle Williamson Integration Specialist New York 61 2012/12/02 $372,000
Herrod Chandler Sales Assistant San Francisco 59 2012/08/06 $137,500
Rhona Davidson Integration Specialist Tokyo 55 2010/10/14 $327,900
Colleen Hurst Javascript Developer San Francisco 39 2009/09/15 $205,500
Sonya Frost Software Engineer Edinburgh 23 2008/12/13 $103,600
Jena Gaines Office Manager London 30 2008/12/19 $90,560
Quinn Flynn Support Lead Edinburgh 22 2013/03/03 $342,000
Name Position Office Age Start date Salary