Creating HTML Tables

Tables can be used to lay out information in a clear and easily understandable format, displayed on rows and columns.

The <style> tag from the examples presented in this tutorial must be added in the <head> are of the webpage.

Creating Tables

Tables are created with the <table> ... </table> tag. A table contains rows and columns.
- The rows are created with the <tr> tag.
- Table cells (that form the columns) are defined with the <td> tag, within the <tr> element.

- In HTML5 the style, alignamennt and tables design is made with CSS; see the tutorial: Styling HTML table with CSS.

Example, a table defined with the minimum elements (having two rows and two columns):

<style>
table, th, td {
 border: 1px solid #000;
}
</style>

<h4>Example HTML table</h4>

<table>
 <tr>
 <td>Row 1 - Column 1</td>
 <td>Row 1 - Column 2</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>Row 2 - Column 1</td>
 <td>Row 2 - Column 2</td>
 </tr>
</table>

Aligning HTML table

To align a table in webpage use CSS style.

Center-aligns the table: <table style='margin:1px auto;'>
Left-aligns the table: <table style='margin-left:0;'>
Right-aligns the table: <table style='margin:margin:1px 0 1px auto;'>

- A table cell (<td>) may contain any content: images (<img>) paragraph (<p>), lists (<ul>, <li>), DIVs (<div>), including another table.
Example:

<style>
table {
 border: 1px solid #000;
 margin:5px auto;
 text-align:center;
}
</style>

<h4>Centered table with HTML elements in TD</h4>

<table>
 <tr><td>
 <p>This is a paragraph,<br>
 next, an image.</p>
 <img src='../imgs/smile_gift.png' alt='Smile' width='150' height='132' />
 </td></tr>
</table>

HTML table structure

The table element contains also other tags to form the table structure, used to group the rows and the columns.

Table elements

<tr> ... </tr> - defines a table row. The <tr> tag contains the cells for content (td), and cells for titles (th).
- Attributes - the standard attributes: id, class, style.
<td> ... </td> - defines a table cell.
- Attributes - the standard attributes: id, class, style, and:
- colspan='number' - sets the number of columns the current cell should span.
- rowspan='number' - sets the number of rows spanned by the current cell.
<th> ... </th> - defines a table header cell.
- Accepts the same attributes as the 'td' element.
<thead> ... </thead> - groups the header content in a table.
<tfoot> ... </tfoot> - defines a table footer.
<tbody> ... </tbody> - groups the body content in a table.
<caption> ... </caption> - defines a table caption. It must follow the table start tag and precede all other table elements.
<colgroup></colgroup> - defines a group of columns in a table, for formatting.
- Attributes - the standard attributes: id, class, style, and:
- span='number' - sets the number of columns a col element should span.
<col /> - defines attribute values for one or more columns, so that attribute properties may be applied to all the cells in the column(s).
- It can use the same attributes as 'colgroup' element.
- This element must appear after the caption element and before any row (tr) or row group (thead, tbody, tfoot).

Example with <th>, rowspan, and colspan

<style>
table {
 border-collapse: collapse;
 margin:5px auto;
 text-align:center;
}
table, th, td {
 border: 1px solid #000;
}
</style>

<h4>Centered table, with th, rowspan, and colspan</h4>

<table>
<tr>
 <th>Title 1</th>
 <th>Title 2</th>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td>Row 2 - Cell 1</td>
 <td>Row 2 - Cell 2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td colspan='2'>Row 3 - Cells 1 and 2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td rowspan='2'>Rows 4 and 5 - Cell 1</td>
 <td>Row 4 - Cell 2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td>Row 5 - Cell 2</td>
</tr>
</table>

Example with thead, tfoot, tbody

<style>
table {
 border-collapse: collapse;
 margin:5px auto;
}
table, th, td {
 border: 1px solid #000;
}
</style>

<h4>Table with thead, tfoot, tbody </h4>
<p>Here, the thead, tbody and tfoot sections are defined with different background colors.</p>

<table>
<thead style='background:#b8b8f8;'>
 <tr>
 <th>Web site</th>
 <th>Description</th>
 </tr>
</thead>
<tfoot style='background:#b0d8b0; text-align:center;'>
 <tr>
 <td colspan='2'>Web sites with free resources.</td>
 </tr>
</tfoot>
<tbody style='background:#ff0;'>
 <tr>
 <td>marplo.net</td>
 <td>Web development, foreign languages, forum.</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>coursesweb.net</td>
 <td>Lessons and tutorials: HTML, CSS, PHP-MySQL, JavaScript.</td>
 </tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Example with colgroup

- Notice that the second colgroup element spans two columns.

<style>
table {
 border-collapse: collapse;
 margin:5px auto;
}
table, th, td {
 border: 1px solid #000;
}
</style>

<h4>Example colgroup</h4>
<p>Table with two colgroup. The first 'colgroup' sets the style of the first column (the ID).</p>

<table>
<colgroup style='background:#b9d9b9; width:50px;'></colgroup>
<colgroup span='2' style='background-color:#d8d8fb;'>
</colgroup>
<tr style='background:#e0e0e0;'>
 <th>ID</th>
 <th>Web site</th>
 <th>Description</th>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td>01</td>
 <td>marplo.net</td>
 <td>Web development, foreign languages, anime and games</td>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td>02</td>
 <td>coursesweb.net</td>
 <td>Lessons and tutorials: HTML, CSS, PHP-MySQL, JavaScript</td>
</tr>
</table>

Example with caption

The position where the caption is displayed (top /bottom) is defined with the CSS caption-side property, applyed to the table element. Default is 'top'.
- Notice that inside caption element is added a <strong> element, this means that you can add formatting tags inside <caption>.

<style>
table {
 border-collapse: collapse;
 caption-side:bottom;
}
table, th, td {
 border: 1px solid #000;
}
 margin:5px auto;
</style>

<h4>Table caption</h4>

<table>
<caption>Caption - <strong>Free Web Development resources</strong></caption>
<tr style='background-color:#deedfe;'>
 <th>Web site</th>
 <th>Description</th>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td>marplo.net</td>
 <td>Web development, foreign languages, anime and games</td>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td>coursesweb.net</td>
 <td>Lessons and tutorials: HTML, CSS, PHP-MySQL, JavaScript</td>
</tr>
</table>

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Creating HTML Tables

Html Course

Creating Tables

Aligning HTML table

HTML table structure

Table elements

Example with <th>, rowspan, and colspan

Example with thead, tfoot, tbody

Example with colgroup

Example with caption

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