Basic table tags
In HTML, you create tables using thetable
tag, in conjunction with the tr
and td
tags. Although there are other tags for creating tables, these are the basics for creating a table in HTML.HTML Code:
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>Table cell 1</td><td>Table cell 2</td>
</tr>
</table>
Table cell 1 | Table cell 2 |
You'll notice that we added a
border
attribute to the table
tag. This particular attribute allows us to specify how thick the border will be. If we don't want a border we can specify 0 (zero). Other common attributes you can use with your table tag include width
, width
, cellspacing
and cellpadding
.You can also add attributes to the
tr
and td
tags. For example, you can specify the width of each table cell.Widths can be specified in either pixels or percentages. Specifying the width in pixels allows you to specify an exact width. Percentages allows the table to "grow" or "shrink" depending on what else is on the page and how wide the browser is.
HTML Code:
<table border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5" width="100%">
<tr>
<td width="20%">Table cell 1</td><td>Table cell 2</td>
</tr>
</table>
Table cell 1 | Table cell 2 |
Table Headers
Many tables, particularly those with tabular data, have a header row or column. In HTML, you can use the
th
tag.Most browsers display table headers in bold and center-aligned.
HTML Code:
<table border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5" width="100%">
<tr>
<th>Table header</th>
<th>Table header</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="20%">Table cell 1</td><td>Table cell 2</td>
</tr>
</table>
Table header | Table header |
---|---|
Table cell 1 | Table cell 2 |
Colspan
You can use the colspan attribute to make a cell span multiple columns.HTML Code:
<table border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5" width="100%">
<tr>
<th colspan="2">Table header</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="20%">Table cell 1</td><td>Table cell 2</td>
</tr>
</table>
Table header | |
---|---|
Table cell 1 | Table cell 2 |
Rowspan
Rowspan is for rows just what colspan is for columns (rowspan allows a cell to span multiple rows).HTML Code:
<table border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5" width="100%">
<tr>
<th rowspan="2">Table header</th><td>Table cell 1
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Table cell 2</td>
</tr>
</table>
Table header | Table cell 1 |
---|---|
Table cell 2 |
Color
You can apply color to your table using CSS. Actually, you can apply any applicable CSS property to your table - not just colors. For example, you can use CSS to apply width, padding, margin, etcHTML Code:
<table border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5" width="100%">
<tr>
<th style="color:blue;background-color:yellow;" rowspan="2">Table header</th><td>Table cell 1
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Table cell 2</td>
</tr>
</table>
Table header | Table cell 1 |
---|---|
Table cell 2 |