Digital Storage Units & Typography Scales Markdown Table Template

When to Use This Table

Formatting This Table in Markdown

A digital storage units & typography scales table puts a few things in cells that Markdown treats as syntax. These are the ones to watch so it renders correctly on GitHub, GitLab, Obsidian and docs sites.

• Keep units out of right-aligned number cells

  Cells such as 1,024 B (KiB) and 1,099,511,627,776 B end in different suffixes, so right-aligned digits do not line up. Put the unit in the header (Exact Bytes (B), as the last numeric column does) and keep cells to bare digits with thousands separators; see column alignment.

• Write powers with Unicode superscripts

  GFM leaves 1024^2 and 10^12 untouched, so write 1024² and 10¹² with Unicode superscripts (every digit has one), or 10<sup>12</sup> outside code spans, or $10^{12}$ where math renders. Each form works only in its own context, so match it to the platform.

• Use ≈ instead of ~ for approximate values

  Some renderers read text between tildes as strikethrough, so ~931 GB and a later ~1 TB in the same cell or paragraph may be struck out. The ≈ character (U+2248) has no Markdown meaning, and neither do × and =.

• Commas make byte counts hard to paste

  Thousands separators make 1,048,576 readable, but a comma-formatted value does not parse as one number in code, and in a CSV export it splits into three fields unless quoted. If readers copy byte counts into config or tests, add a plain-digits column.

What Goes in Each Column

How to Fill It In

1. 1Generate the byte values rather than typing them. A one-line script (1024 ** n and 1000 ** n for n = 1…5) gives exact integers; formatting them with a locale-aware number formatter adds separators without mistakes.
2. 2Decide which convention your product uses for limits and say so in a sentence above the table. Then check the actual enforcement code: many servers, including nginx’s client_max_body_size, read 10m as 10 × 1024 × 1024 bytes.
3. 3Pull the typography values from your own Tailwind theme, not from memory. In Tailwind v4 the defaults live as --text-* CSS variables; if your project overrides them, the table must show your overrides.
4. 4Convert rem to pixels by multiplying by 16 only if your root font size is the browser default. If your CSS sets html { font-size: 62.5% } or similar, use that base and state it in the table caption.
5. 5Spot-check each row against one real tool: ls -lh or Windows Explorer for binary sizes, macOS Finder for decimal, and your browser’s computed styles panel for the font sizes.

Ready-to-Paste Variations

| Prefix pair | Binary (bytes) | Decimal (bytes) | Binary is larger by |
| :--- | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| KiB vs kB | 1,024 | 1,000 | 2.40% |
| MiB vs MB | 1,048,576 | 1,000,000 | 4.86% |
| GiB vs GB | 1,073,741,824 | 1,000,000,000 | 7.37% |
| TiB vs TB | 1,099,511,627,776 | 1,000,000,000,000 | 9.95% |
| PiB vs PB | 1,125,899,906,842,624 | 1,000,000,000,000,000 | 12.59% |

| Class | Pixels | Rem |
| :--- | ---: | ---: |
| `text-xs` | 12 | 0.75 |
| `text-sm` | 14 | 0.875 |
| `text-base` | 16 | 1 |
| `text-lg` | 18 | 1.125 |
| `text-xl` | 20 | 1.25 |
| `text-2xl` | 24 | 1.5 |
| `text-3xl` | 30 | 1.875 |

| Where the number appears | Base | Label shown |
| :--- | :---: | :--- |
| Drive packaging and spec sheets | 1000 | GB, TB |
| macOS Finder | 1000 | KB, MB, GB |
| Windows File Explorer | 1024 | KB, MB, GB |
| `ls -lh` (GNU coreutils) | 1024 | K, M, G |
| `ls -lh --si` (GNU coreutils) | 1000 | k, M, G |
| Network speeds (Mbps) | 1000 | bits, not bytes |

Common Mistakes

• Writing “1 KB = 1024 bytes” without qualification.

  Under SI, kB is 1000 bytes; the 1024-byte unit is KiB. If your audience expects the older memory convention, say “KB (1024 bytes)” explicitly rather than relying on the reader to guess.

• Documenting a file limit in MB while the server checks MiB, or the reverse.

  Find the line of code or config that enforces the limit, compute the exact byte count, and print that count in the docs. Then the UI copy, the API docs, and the server all agree.

• Confusing bytes and bits when describing transfer times.

  Network speeds are quoted in bits per second with decimal prefixes. Divide Mbps by 8 to get megabytes per second (decimal) before estimating how long a 500 MB upload takes.

• Hard-coding font sizes in px because the table lists pixels.

  Pixels are in the table for designers. In CSS use the rem value or the Tailwind class, so text scales when a reader raises the default font size in browser settings.