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30.13.3 Table Recognition

Table Mode maintains special text properties in the buffer to allow editing in a convenient fashion. When a buffer with tables is saved to its file, these text properties are lost, so when you visit this file again later, Emacs does not see a table, but just formatted text. To resurrect the table text properties, issue the M-x table-recognize command. It scans the current buffer, recognizes valid table cells, and attaches appropriate text properties to allow for table editing. The converse command, table-unrecognize, is used to remove the special text properties and revert the buffer back to plain text.

An optional numeric prefix argument can precede the table-recognize command. If the argument is negative, tables in the buffer become inactive. This is equivalent to invoking table-unrecognize.

Similar functions exist to enable or disable tables within a region, enable or disable individual tables, and enable/disable individual cells. These commands are:

M-x table-recognize-region
Recognize tables within the current region and activate them.
M-x table-unrecognize-region
Deactivate tables within the current region.
M-x table-recognize-table
Recognize the table under point and activate it.
M-x table-unrecognize-table
Deactivate the table under point.
M-x table-recognize-cell
Recognize the cell under point and activate it.
M-x table-unrecognize-cell
Deactivate the cell under point.

For another way of converting text into tables, see Table Conversion.