diff --git a/src/lgdo/types/scalar.py b/src/lgdo/types/scalar.py
index 86630899..6b793137 100644
--- a/src/lgdo/types/scalar.py
+++ b/src/lgdo/types/scalar.py
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ class Scalar(LGDO):
 
     # TODO: do scalars need proper numpy dtypes?
 
-    def __init__(self, value: int | float, attrs: dict[str, Any] = None) -> None:
+    def __init__(self, value: int | float | str, attrs: dict[str, Any] = None) -> None:
         """
         Parameters
         ----------
diff --git a/src/lgdo/types/table.py b/src/lgdo/types/table.py
index 364a1927..6ad3bc88 100644
--- a/src/lgdo/types/table.py
+++ b/src/lgdo/types/table.py
@@ -225,7 +225,10 @@ def get_dataframe(
                 if not hasattr(column, "nda"):
                     raise ValueError(f"column {col} does not have an nda")
                 else:
-                    df[prefix + str(col)] = column.nda.tolist()
+                    if len(column.nda.shape) == 1:
+                        df[prefix + str(col)] = column.nda
+                    else:
+                        df[prefix + str(col)] = column.nda.tolist()
 
         return df