th.tablesorter-headerSortUp {
  background-color: #8dbdd8;
  background-image: url(black-asc.gif);
}

th.tablesorter-headerSortDown {
  background-color: #8dbdd8;
  background-image: url(black-desc.gif);
}

th.tablesorter-header {
  background-color: #e6eeee;
  background-image: url(black-bg.gif);
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  background-position: center right;
  border-collapse: collapse;
  cursor: pointer;
  font-size: 12px;
  padding: 4px 20px 4px 4px;
}

With the addition of multiple tbody sorting in v2.2, you can now insert a non-sorting tbody within the table by adding this class to the tbody.

<tbody class="tablesorter-infoOnly">
  <tr>
    <th>The contents of this tbody</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>will not be sorted</td>
  </tr>
</tbody>

As an example, I've split up this options table into three (3) tbodies. The first contains the active options, the second is the info block with a row that only contains the text "Deprecated Options", and the last tbody contains the deprecated options. Sort the table to see how each tbody sorts separately.

NOTE! The pager plugin will only be applied to the first tbody, as always. I may work on modifying this behavior in the future, if I can figure out the best implementation.

It was necessary to add this option because some widgets add table rows for styling (see the writing custom widgets demo) and if a table update is triggered ($('table').trigger('update');) those added rows will automatically become incorporated into the table.

• "mmddyyyy" (default)
• "ddmmyyyy"
• "yyyymmdd"

In previous versions, this option was set as "us", "uk" or "dd/mm/yy". This option was modified to better fit needed date formats. It will only work with four digit years!

The sorter should be set to "shortDate" and the date format can be set in the "dateFormat" option or set for a specific columns within the "headers" option. See the demo page to see it working.

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({

    dateFormat : "mmddyyyy", // default date format

    // or to change the format for specific columns,
    // add the dateFormat to the headers option:
    headers: {
      0: { sorter: "shortDate" }, // "shortDate" with the default dateFormat above
      1: { sorter: "shortDate", dateFormat: "ddmmyyyy" }, // day first format
      2: { sorter: "shortDate", dateFormat: "yyyymmdd" }  // year first format
    }

  });
});

Individual columns can be modified by adding the following, set in order of priority Modified! v2.3.1:

• jQuery data data-dateFormat="mmddyyyy".
• metadata class="{ dateFormat: 'mmddyyyy'}". This requires the metadata plugin.
• headers option headers : { 0 : { dateFormat : 'mmddyyyy' } }.
• header class name class="dateFormat-mmddyyyy".
• Overall dateFormat option.

• bottom - sort empty table cells to the bottom.
• top - sort empty table cells to the top.
• none or zero - sort empty table cells as if the cell has the value equal to zero.

Individual columns can be modified by adding the following, set in order of priority:

• jQuery data data-empty="top".
• metadata class="{ empty: 'top'}". This requires the metadata plugin.
• headers option headers : { 0 : { empty : 'top' } }.
• header class name class="empty-top".
• Overall emptyTo option.

emptyToBottom option was added in v2.1.11, then replaced by the emptyTo option in v2.1.16.

For example, to disable sorting on the first two columns of a table: headers: { 0: { sorter: false}, 1: {sorter: false} }.

The plugin attempts to detect the type of data that is contained in a column, but if it can't figure it out then it defaults to alphanumeric. You can easily override this by setting the header argument (or column parser). See the full list of default parsers here or write your own.

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({
    headers: {

      // See example - Disable first column
      0: { sorter: false },

      // See example 2: Sort column numerically & treat any text as if its value is:
      1: { sorter: "digit", empty: "top" },  // zero; sort empty cells to the top
      2: { sorter: "digit", string: "max" }, // maximum positive value
      3: { sorter: "digit", string: "min" }, // maximum negative value

      // Sort the fifth column by date & set the format
      4: { sorter: "shortDate", dateFormat: "yyyymmdd" }  // year first format

      // See example 3: lock the sort order
      // this option will not work if added as metadata
      5: { lockedOrder: "asc" },

      // See Example 4: Initial sort order direction of seventh column
      6: { sortInitialOrder: "desc" },

      // Set the filter to false to disable the filter widget in this column
      // See the "Applying the filter widget" demo
      7: { filter: false }

    }
  });
});

In versions 2.0.6+, all TH text is wrapped in a span by default. In the example below, the header cell (TH) span is given a class name (source).

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({
    onRenderHeader: function (){
      $(this).find('span').addClass('roundedCorners');
    }
  });
});

and you'll end up with this HTML (only the thead is shown)

<thead>
  <tr>
    <th class="header"><span class="roundedCorners">Column 1</span></th>
    <th class="header"><span class="roundedCorners">Column 2</span></th>
  </tr>
</thead>

sorter: false	disable sort for this column.
sorter: "text"	Sort alpha-numerically.
sorter: "digit"	Sort numerically.
sorter: "currency"	Sort by currency value (supports "£$€¤¥¢").
sorter: "ipAddress"	Sort by IP Address.
sorter: "url"	Sort by url.
sorter: "isoDate"	Sort by ISO date (YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY/MM/DD).
sorter: "percent"	Sort by percent.
sorter: "usLongDate"	Sort by date (U.S. Standard, e.g. Jan 18, 2001 9:12 AM).
sorter: "shortDate"	Sort by a shorten date (see dateFormat).
sorter: "time"	Sort by time (23:59 or 12:59 pm).
sorter: "metadata"	Sort by the sorter value in the metadata - requires the metadata plugin.

Check out the headers option to see how to use these parsers in your table (example #1).
Or add a header class name using "sorter-" plus the parser name (example #2), this includes custom parsers (example #3).

You can change this, but the table will still need the required thead and tbody before this plugin will work properly.
Added > to the selector in version 2.3 to prevent targetting nested table headers. Modified! v2.3

For example, sortForce: [[0,0]] will sort the first column in ascending order. After the forced sort, the user selected column(s), or during initialzation, the sorting order defined in the sortList will follow. And lastly, the sort defined in the sortAppend option will be applied. More explicitly:

There are three options to determine the sort order and this is the order of priority:

1. sortForce forces the user to have this/these column(s) sorted first (null by default).
2. SortList is the initial sort order of the columns.
3. SortAppend is the default sort that is added to the end of the users sort selection (null by default).

The value of these sort options is an array of arrays and can include one or more columns. The format is an array of instructions for per-column sorting and direction in the format: [[columnIndex, sortDirection], ... ] where columnIndex is a zero-based index for your columns left-to-right and sortDirection is 0 for Ascending and 1 for Descending. A valid argument that sorts ascending first by column 1 and then column 2 looks like: [[0,0],[1,0]].

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({
    sortForce  : [[0,0]],        // Always sort first column first
    sortList   : [[1,0], [2,0]], // initial sort columns (2nd and 3rd)
    sortAppend : [[3,0]]         // Always add this sort on the end (4th column)
  });
});

The value contains an array of instructions for per-column sorting and direction in the format: [[columnIndex, sortDirection], ... ] where columnIndex is a zero-based index for your columns left-to-right and sortDirection is 0 for Ascending and 1 for Descending. A valid argument that sorts ascending first by column 1 and then column 2 looks like: [[0,0],[1,0]]. Please see sortForce for more details on other sort order options.

This option can also be set using jQuery data (New! v2.3.1) or metadata on the table:

jQuery data	<table data-sortlist="[[0,0],[4,0]]">
Meta data	<table class="tablesorter {sortlist: [[0,0],[4,0]]}">

For example, can be used to sort people alphabetically after some other user-selected sort that results in rows with the same value like dates or money due. It can help prevent data from appearing as though it has a random secondary sort.

The value contains an array of instructions for per-column sorting and direction in the format: [[columnIndex, sortDirection], ... ] where columnIndex is a zero-based index for your columns left-to-right and sortDirection is 0 for Ascending and 1 for Descending. A valid argument that sorts ascending first by column 1 and then column 2 looks like: [[0,0],[1,0]]. Please see sortForce for more details on other sort order options.

This order can also be set by desired column using the headers option (Added in v2.0.8).

Individual columns can be modified by adding the following, set in order of priority Modified! v2.3.1:

• jQuery data data-sortInitialOrder="asc".
• metadata class="{ sortInitialOrder: 'asc'}". This requires the metadata plugin.
• headers option headers : { 0 : { sortInitialOrder : 'asc' } }.
• header class name class="sortInitialOrder-asc".
• Overall sortInitialOrder option.

• This option no longer switches the sort to use the String.localeCompare method.
• When this option is true, the text parsed from table cells will convert accented characters to their equivalent to allow the alphanumeric sort to properly sort.
• If false (default), any accented characters are treated as their value in the standard unicode order.
• The following characters are replaced for both upper and lower case (information obtained from sugar.js sorting equivalents table):
  • áàâãä replaced with a
  • ç replaced with c
  • éèêë replaced with e
  • íìİîï replaced with i
  • óòôõö replaced with o
  • úùûü replaced with u
  • ß replaced with S
• Please see the example page for instrcutions on how to modify the above equivalency table.
• If you would like to continuing using the String.localeCompare method, then set the sortLocaleCompare option to false and use the new textSorter option as follows:

  $('table').tablesorter({
    textSorter: function(a,b) {
      return a.localeCompare(b);
    }
  });

Boolean flag indicating whenever to use javascript String.localeCompare method or not.
This is only used when comparing text with international character strings. A sort using localeCompare will sort accented characters the same as their unaccented counterparts.

String options was initially set in the header options only. Overall option added and values changed in version 2.1.16; setting the value to:

• "max" will treat any text in that column as a value greater than the max (more positive) value. Renamed from "max+".
• "min" will treat any text in that column as a value greater than the min (more negative) value. Renamed from "max-".
• "top" will always sort the text to the top of the column.
• "bottom" will always sort the text to the bottom of the column.
• "none" or "zero" will treat the text as if it has a value of zero.

Individual columns can be modified by adding the following, set in order of priority:

• jQuery data data-string="top".
• metadata class="{ string: 'top'}". This requires the metadata plugin.
• headers option headers : { 0 : { string : 'top' } }.
• header class name class="string-top".
• Overall stringTo option.

Change this option if you are not using the default css, or if you are using a completely custom stylesheet.

You can customize the text extraction by writing your own text extraction function "myTextExtraction" which you define like:

var myTextExtraction = function(node, table, cellIndex){
  // extract data from markup and return it
  // originally: return node.childNodes[0].childNodes[0].innerHTML;
  return $(node).find('selector').text();
}
$(function(){
  $("#myTable").tableSorter( { textExtraction: myTextExtraction } );
});

tablesorter will pass the current table cell object for you to parse and return. Thanks to Josh Nathanson for the examples. Updated to a jQuery example by Rob G (Mottie).

Now if the text you are finding in the script above is say a number, then just include the headers sorter option to specify how to sort it. Also in this example, we will specify that the special textExtraction code is only needed for the second column ("1" because we are using a zero-based index). All other columns will ignore this textExtraction function.

Added table and cellIndex variables to the textExtraction function in version 2.1.2.

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({
    textExtraction: {
      1: function(node, table, cellIndex) {
           return $(node).find("span:last").text();
      }
    },
    headers: {
      1: { sorter : "digit" }
    }
  });
});

Include a script like naturalSort.js as follows:

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({
    textSorter : naturalSort
  });
});

or use the localeCompare sort

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({
    textSorter: function(a,b) {
      return a.localeCompare(b);
    }
  });
});

There's no need to worry about reverse sorting, it's taken care of by the plugin.

true	U.S.	1,234,567.89
false	German: French:	1.234.567,89 1 234 567,89

Previously documented widget options widgetZebra, widgetColumns and widgetUitheme will be retained for backwards compatibility.

Use the widgetOptions option as follows, please note that each option is followed by a comma (except the last one):

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({

    // initialize a bunch of widgets
    widgets: ["zebra", "uitheme", "columns", "filter", "stickyHeaders"],

    widgetOptions: {

      // zebra widget: adding zebra striping, using content and default styles - the ui css removes the background
      // from default even and odd class names included for this demo to allow switching themes
      // [ "even", "odd" ]
      zebra   : ["ui-widget-content even", "ui-state-default odd"],

      // uitheme widget: change default uitheme icons
      // find the full list of icons here: http://jqueryui.com/themeroller/ (hover over them for their name)
      // default icons: ["ui-icon-arrowthick-2-n-s", "ui-icon-arrowthick-1-s", "ui-icon-arrowthick-1-n"]
      // ["up/down arrow (cssHeaders/unsorted)","down arrow (cssDesc/descending)","up arrow (cssAsc/ascending)"]
      uitheme : ["ui-icon-carat-2-n-s", "ui-icon-carat-1-s", "ui-icon-carat-1-n"],

      // columns widget: change the default column class names
      // primary is the first column sorted, secondary is the second, etc
      columns : [ "primary", "secondary", "tertiary" ],

      // filter widget: If there are child rows in the table (rows with class name from "cssChildRow" option)
      // and this option is true and a match is found anywhere in the child row, then it will make that row
      // visible; default is false
      filter_childRows : false,

      // filter widget: css class applied to the table row containing the filters & the inputs within that row
      filter_cssFilter : "tablesorter-filter",

      // filter widget: Set this option to true to use the filter to find text from the start of the column
      // So typing in "a" will find "albert" but not "frank", both have a's; default is false
      filter_startsWith : false,

      // stickyHeaders widget: css class name applied to the sticky header
      stickyHeaders    : "tablesorter-stickyHeader"

    }

  });
});

When the column styling widget is initialized, it automatically applied the default class names of "primary" for the primary sort, "secondary" for the next sort, "tertiary" for the next sort, and so on (add more as needed)... (New v2.0.17). Use the widgetColumns option to change the css class name as follows:

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({
    widgets: ["columns"], // initialize column styling of the table
    widgetColumns: { css: ["primary", "secondary", "tertiary" ] }
  });
});

Used when the ui theme styling widget is initialized. It automatically applies the default class names of "ui-icon-arrowthick-2-n-s" for the unsorted column, "ui-icon-arrowthick-1-s" for the descending sort and "ui-icon-arrowthick-1-n" for the ascending sort. (New v2.0.9). Find more jQuery UI class names by hovering over the Framework icons on this page: http://jqueryui.com/themeroller/

Use the widgetUitheme option to change the css class name as follows:

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({
    widgets: ["uitheme"], // initialize ui theme styling widget of the table
    widgetUitheme: {
      css: [
        "ui-icon-carat-2-n-s", // Unsorted icon
        "ui-icon-carat-1-s",   // Sort up (down arrow)
        "ui-icon-carat-1-n"    // Sort down (up arrow)
      ]
    }
  });
});

When the zebra striping widget is initialized, it automatically applied the default class names of "even" and "odd". Use the widgetZebra option to change the css class name as follows:

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({
    widgets: ["zebra"], // initialize zebra striping of the table
    widgetZebra: { css: [ "normal-row", "alt-row" ] }
  });
});

Use the "columns" option to change the css class name as follows:

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({
    widgets: ["columns"], // initialize column styling of the table
    widgetOptions : {
      columns: [ "primary", "secondary", "tertiary" ]
    }
  });
});

Use the filter_childRows option include child row text as follows:

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({
    widgets: ["filter"],
    widgetOptions : {
      filter_childRows : true
    }
  });
});

Use the "tablesorter-filter" option to change the css class name as follows:

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({
    widgets: ["filter"],
    widgetOptions : {
      // css class applied to the table row containing the filters & the inputs within that row
      filter_cssFilter : "tablesorter-filter"
    }
  });
});

Use the filter_startsWith option as follows:

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({
    widgets: ["filter"],
    widgetOptions : {
      filter_startsWith : true
    }
  });
});

Use the "stickyHeaders" option to change the css class name as follows:

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({
    widgets: ["stickyHeaders"],
    widgetOptions : {
      // css class name applied to the sticky header
      stickyHeaders : "tablesorter-stickyHeader"
    }
  });
});

Find more jQuery UI class names by hovering over the Framework icons on this page: http://jqueryui.com/themeroller/

Use the "widgetUitheme" option to change the css class name as follows:

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({
    widgets: ["uitheme"], // initialize ui theme styling widget of the table
    widgetOptions: {
      uitheme : [
        "ui-icon-carat-2-n-s", // Unsorted icon
        "ui-icon-carat-1-s",   // Sort up (down arrow)
        "ui-icon-carat-1-n"    // Sort down (up arrow)
      ]
    }
  });
});

Use the "zebra" option to change the css class name as follows:

$(function(){
  $("table").tablesorter({
    widgets: ["zebra"], // initialize zebra striping of the table
    widgetOptions: {
      zebra: [ "normal-row", "alt-row" ]
    }
  });
});