Is there a way to post in columns?

Clariman

Is there a way to post text in columns or tabular format in the MSE forums? i.e. to line up two columns.

On other forums it can be done in a number of ways. Are any of these available on MSE ... or any other that I haven't mentioned?

1. Using a tag like [pre] or <pre> to leave the following text laid out as it is typed in is used by many forums. <pre> is used on the Motley Fool and [pre] seems to be an optional add-on in vBulletin but it does not appear to have been implemented here. Could it be?

2. Another forum I know uses a [tt] tag for Teletype which does much the same as <pre> does in item 1 above.

3. The creation of tables. Is there a way of creating tabbed or tabular input in a post. If not directly, can I post in some HTML to do it?

4. I have tried using manually laid out text with and that does work to an extent but doesn't look that nice.

Thanks
Clariman