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I used to work in another industry, but now that I work in analytics, I hear the term "tabular" or "tabular format" all the time. It's always in the context of "this needs to be in tabular format" or "we have a bunch of tabular data, blah blah blah" and it sounds like it means the exact same thing as "table format". According to https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/tabular, it means the same thing. However, if that is true, and it does mean the same thing, why do people use the word "tabular" instead of "table". It seems illogical that one would use more obscure vocabulary simply as a matter of preference, especially in a business setting. If they are the same, why do people use this term at all?

SUMguy
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    Using the term "table" may cause confusion as the term is also widely used in databases, where it has a somewhat more technical meaning. "Tabular" is less ambiguous and more general when just talking about data formatted as a table. – Paul R Jul 24 '17 at 15:58

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In the software industry, when I hear the term "table formatting" I think of HTML <table> elements being used to format a web page.

Also consider the comment that a "table" can refer to a table in a database.

However, "tabular" data can be stored/displayed in a grid of any kind. For example, a CSV file, JavaScript based grid, a database, or even a JSON object. You are right that "tabular data" just means data in a table format. Because of the reasons listed above, I think the term "tabular" is more specific, or at least less likely to become ambiguous. More or less, it describes the data to be in rows without any assumption about how the data is stored, transmitted, or presented.

So that's why I distinguish between the two, at least for web development. This may be industry specific, however.

JHS
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  • Can you please explain further. What do you mean by " Regardless of what that grid is made of". – Ubi.B Dec 15 '19 at 15:24