How do I align columns of text into a neatly formatted table in Vim?

Explanation

When working with data that has uneven spacing — such as variable assignments, CSV-like data, or configuration entries — you can select the lines and pipe them through the external column -t command to instantly align everything into neat columns.

How it works

• :'<,'> — the visual selection range (automatically inserted when you press : in visual mode)
• ! — filter the selection through an external command
• column -t — a Unix utility that formats input into a table by detecting whitespace-separated columns and padding them evenly

The selected text is replaced in-place with the aligned output.

Example

Before (select these lines in visual mode):

name age city
Alice 30 Portland
Bob 7 San Francisco
Charlie 55 NYC

After pressing :'<,'>!column -t:

name     age  city
Alice    30   Portland
Bob      7    San
Charlie  55   NYC

Note that column -t splits on whitespace by default. For other delimiters, use the -s flag: :'<,'>!column -t -s ',' for CSV data.

Tips

• Use column -t -s '|' to align Markdown tables separated by pipes
• This works on any system with the column utility (standard on Linux and macOS)
• Combine with sort for sorted, aligned output: :'<,'>!sort | column -t
• Undo with u if the result is not what you expected