🛠️ Fix Table Formatting Loss When Publishing Articles

🔍 Overview

When you publish an article from Search Atlas to a connected CMS, tables may lose their formatting — borders disappear, columns collapse, or the entire table renders as plain text. This is a known issue that has been resolved through platform updates, but a few steps on your end can ensure tables transfer cleanly across all your CMS connections.

⚙️ Why This Happens

Table formatting can break during publishing for a few common reasons:

• HTML sanitisation by the CMS: Some CMS platforms strip or rewrite certain HTML tags — including <table>, <thead>, and <td> — when content is received via API, causing borders and structure to disappear.
• Block conversion conflicts: When Search Atlas converts your article into CMS-compatible blocks, tables may be flattened into a single content block instead of being preserved as structured elements.
• Missing table styles: The CMS theme may not apply default border styles to tables, making them appear invisible even when the HTML is technically correct.

✅ Recommended Fixes

1. Re-publish the article after the platform update. A fix preserving table structure during CMS publishing has been deployed. Open your article in the Content Editor, make no changes, and click Publish again. This forces the updated export logic to run.
2. Check your CMS connection settings. Navigate to your CMS integrations and confirm that the connection is active and using the latest version. Disconnect and reconnect any affected CMS if the issue persists after re-publishing.
3. Verify your CMS theme supports table styles. In WordPress and similar platforms, add the following CSS to your theme's stylesheet or custom CSS panel to restore visible table borders:
   1. Test with a single CMS connection first. If you have multiple connections affected, re-publish to one CMS and confirm the table renders correctly before pushing to the remaining five. This helps isolate whether the issue is platform-wide or specific to one integration.
   2. Avoid copying table content from external sources. If you paste a table from Google Docs, Microsoft Word, or another tool into the Content Editor, the underlying HTML may carry incompatible styles. Build tables directly inside the Search Atlas editor when possible.
   3. Open the left sidebar → Content (Content Genius tab).
   4. Locate the article with the formatting issue and click to open it.
   5. Scroll through the article to confirm the table appears correctly inside the editor.
   6. Click Publish and select your target CMS connection.
   7. Once published, visit the live URL or CMS preview to confirm the table borders and columns are intact.
   8. Repeat for each additional CMS connection as needed.
   • Do not manually edit raw HTML in your CMS to re-add table tags — this can be overwritten on the next publish.
   • Do not delete and recreate CMS connections as a first step; re-publishing is sufficient in most cases.
   • Do not use the CMS's built-in editor to reformat the table after publishing, as subsequent publishes from Search Atlas may overwrite those changes.
   • Confirm you are using a supported CMS version.
   • Check that your CMS API key has write permissions, which are required for full HTML block publishing.
   • Clear the CMS page cache after publishing, as a cached version may still display the old formatting.

table, th, td { border: 1px solid #ccc; border-collapse: collapse; padding: 8px; }

This ensures tables display correctly regardless of how your theme handles default styles.

📋 Step-by-Step: Re-Publish an Article

🚫 What to Avoid

💡 Still Seeing the Issue?

If tables are still not rendering correctly after re-publishing, try the following quick checks:

If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.