Methods and systems are described for plain text formatting of data item tables. An example system includes a plain text table manager including a template manager configured to obtain a hierarchical template including table information associated with a table, table information formatted in accordance with a non-proprietary markup language format. The example system also includes a parsing engine configured to parse the table information associated with the table to determine one or more markup language elements associated with the table. The example system also includes a plain text layout engine configured to determine a plain text graphical table structured layout associated with the table, based on the one or more markup language elements. The example system also includes a graphical table structure generator configured to generate a plain text graphical table structured view of the table indicating one or more data items indicated by the table information.