Web Design Tutorials

 

HTML Tables

Tables are widely used by Web designers to do page layout. Tables give a designer control over the positioning of images and text on the page. It gives you significant control over the way text and graphics display horizontally and vertically on the screen. Learn how to arrange text, graphics and links into rows and columns, with or without borders. You can control the color of cells within tables and experiment with cells that span multiple rows or columns.

Tables

Tables are defined with the <table> tag. A table is divided into rows (with the <tr> tag), and each row is divided into data cells (with the <td> tag). The letters td stands for "table data," which is the content of a data cell. A data cell can contain text, images, lists, paragraphs, forms, horizontal rules, tables, etc.
  
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>row 1, cell 1</td>
<td>row 1, cell 2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>row 2, cell 1</td>
<td>row 2, cell 2</td>
</tr>
</table>

How it looks in a browser:
row 1, cell 1 row 1, cell 2
row 2, cell 1 row 2, cell 2

Tables and the Border Attribute

If you do not specify a border attribute the table will be displayed without any borders. Sometimes this can be useful, but most of the time, you want the borders to show. To display a table with borders, you will have to use the border attribute:
  
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>Row 1, cell 1</td>
<td>Row 1, cell 2</td>
</tr>
</table>

Headings in a Table

Headings in a table are defined with the <th> tag.
  
<table border="1">
<tr>
<th>Heading</th>
<th>Another Heading</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>row 1, cell 1</td>
<td>row 1, cell 2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>row 2, cell 1</td>
<td>row 2, cell 2</td>
</tr>
</table>

How it looks in a browser:
Heading Another Heading
row 1, cell 1 row 1, cell 2
row 2, cell 1 row 2, cell 2

Empty Cells in a Table

Table cells with no content are not displayed very well in most browsers.
  
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>row 1, cell 1</td>
<td>row 1, cell 2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>row 2, cell 1</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
</table>

How it looks in a browser:
row 1, cell 1 row 1, cell 2
row 2, cell 1

Note that the borders around the empty table cell are missing. To avoid this, add a non-breaking space (&nbsp;) to empty data cells, to make the borders visible: 
  
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>row 1, cell 1</td>
<td>row 1, cell 2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>row 2, cell 1</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
</table>

How it looks in a browser:
 
row 1, cell 1 row 1, cell 2
row 2, cell 1  

Useful Tips

The <thead>,<tbody> and <tfoot> elements are seldom used, because of bad browser support. Expect this to change in future versions of XHTML.

Table Tags

Tag Description
<table> Defines a table
<th> Defines a table header
<tr> Defines a table row
<td> Defines a table cell
<caption> Defines a table caption
<colgroup> Defines groups of table columns
<col> Defines the attribute values for one or more columns in a table
<thead> Defines a table head
<tbody> Defines a table body
<tfoot> Defines a table footer

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