Sandstone Stairs can be crafted in 3 ways — the grid above cycles through all of them. Variant 1 is a shaped crafting recipe that uses 6 items: 6 Sandstone. Place the ingredients exactly in the pattern shown above. The pattern can sit anywhere on the grid as long as its shape stays the same. It needs the full 3×3 grid, so you have to use a crafting table.
You need 6 Sandstone — 6 items in total, arranged as shown in the crafting grid. The recipe gives you 4× Sandstone Stairs.
Yes. The recipe needs the full 3×3 grid, which only a crafting table offers.
It is a shaped recipe: the arrangement matters. You can shift the pattern around the grid, but the shape must stay the same.
Yes. There are 3 variants of the recipe — the others use Cut Sandstone and Chiseled Sandstone. The grid on this page cycles through all of them.