<p>Often, when editing other people's answers and questions, we have to deal with non-formatted tables, as people justifiably don't know how to type those in the text boxes and keep the table formatting. Currently, I usually encode the tables in the code sample format, such as this:</p>

<p>n Left Center Right
1 0.24 1      125
2 -1   189    -8
3 -20  2000   1+10i</p>

<p>Becomes this:</p>

<pre><code>n Left Center Right
1 0.24 1      125
2 -1   189    -8
3 -20  2000   1+10i
</code></pre>

<p>Now, that looks like a misuse of the code formatting, but it's at least readable and promptly copyable. I was looking around the MathJax tutorial at <a href="https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5020/mathjax-basic-tutorial-and-quick-reference">Math.SE</a> and got around <a href="https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/a/5044">this part about arrays formatting</a>, which is another possibility and I regard has been used previously on CV.</p>

<p>Basically, this code:</p>

<pre><code>$$
\begin{array}{c|lcr}
n &amp; \text{Left} &amp; \text{Center} &amp; \text{Right} \\
\hline
1 &amp; 0.24 &amp; 1 &amp; 125 \\
2 &amp; -1 &amp; 189 &amp; -8 \\
3 &amp; -20 &amp; 2000 &amp; 1+10i
\end{array}
$$
</code></pre>

<p>Generates this table:</p>

<p>$$
\begin{array}{c|lcr}
n &amp; \text{Left} &amp; \text{Center} &amp; \text{Right} \\
\hline
1 &amp; 0.24 &amp; 1 &amp; 125 \\
2 &amp; -1 &amp; 189 &amp; -8 \\
3 &amp; -20 &amp; 2000 &amp; 1+10i
\end{array}
$$</p>

<p>Which looks much better but is harder to copy.</p>

<p>What's the best practice regarding table formatting then? Also, am I misusing the code formatting? I see I'm not the first to bring up MathJax arrays (see <a href="https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2531/have-latex-tables-stopped-working">Have Latex tables stopped working?</a>).</p>
