CDI's Comprehensive HTML Cross Reference

Tables Tags

This document describes tags used in tables.

This table:

Support:

2.0, 3.0, 3.2

1.1+

1.0+

alert you to tags and attributes that are not supported by all browsers. The support page explains the table and the icons in detail.

Finding your way around...

Not all HTML tags are in this single file. The comprehensive list has been split into the following eight categories:

• Forms Tags: tags used to design and implement interactive forms
• Tables Tags: tags used in tables
• List Tags: tags associated with lists
• Old HTML 3.0 Tags: tags included in the abandoned HTML 3.0 draft and not incorporated into later drafts of HTML
• Toplevel Tags: tags that affect an entire web page or, like the division tag, a large part of one
• Character Formatting Tags: tags that change the formatting of a set of characters and do not cause a line break
• Block Formatting Tags: tags that change the formatting of a block of characters and cause a line break before and after the tag
• Miscellaneous Tags: tags that don't fit our other categories, including the crucial anchor tag (used for creating hypertext links) and inline image tags

We have also provided several indexes to help you navigate through this reference. In addition to our main indexes (the compact index and the complete index), there are four other indexes that list the tags according to the standards and browsers that support them.

CDI's Comprehensive HTML Cross Reference was created as a service to the Internet community, and forms part of CDI's Internet and HTML curriculum. It represents a joint effort of CDI Corporate Education Services and Gregory Consulting and is Copyright © 1995 - 2001, CDI Corporate Education Services Limited. Please report any errors or omissions to Kate Gregory.

Caption

Support:

3.2

2.0+

3.0+

<CAPTION> text </CAPTION>
<CAPTION ALIGN=alignment> text </CAPTION>
<CAPTION ALIGN=alignment> text </CAPTION>
<CAPTION VALIGN=vertical-alignment> text </CAPTION>

The caption tag defines the caption of a figure or table. It is valid only within FIG or TABLE tags.

The ALIGN attribute arranges for the caption to be at the TOP or BOTTOM of the table or figure.

The ALIGN attribute sets the alignment of the caption within the table or figure border. It can be LEFT, RIGHT, or CENTER.

The VALIGN attribute arranges for the caption to be at the TOP or BOTTOM of the table or figure.

Multi Column Text

Support:

3.0+

<MULTICOL attributes>

This tag is a container, used to split the display into columns without using frames or tables. The attributes of this tag are:

COLS="number"

The COLS attribute is mandatory and controls how many columns the display will be split into.

 

GUTTER="pixels"

The GUTTER attribute controls the pixels of space between columns. It defaults to a value of 10.

 

WIDTH="number"

The WIDTH attribute controls the width of an individual column.

Table

Support:

3.2

1.1+

2.0+

<TABLE attributes> table-content </TABLE>

A table consists of an optional caption (CAPTION) and one or more rows (TR.) The attributes are:

ALIGN="alignment"

This causes the table to be aligned in one of a variety of ways on the page. Here "alignment" should be one of

LEFT: To the left text margin

CENTER: In the centre of the page (Turns on NOFLOW.)

RIGHT: To the right text margin

BLEEDRIGHT: To the rightmost edge of the window

BLEEDLEFT: To the leftmost edge of the window

JUSTIFY: To both text margins (The table size is adjusted. Turns on NOFLOW.)

Note that this does not affect the alignment of the table entries.

WIDTH=number

The UNITS attribute is used to translate number.

BORDER

This attribute causes the table to be drawn with a border.

BORDER=number

This attribute draws the table with a border number pixels thick.

CELLPADDING=number

This separates the cell borders and the text with a padding of number pixels.

CELLSPACING=number

This separates cells with a gutter of number pixels.

BGCOLOR="#rrggbb"
BGCOLOR="colorname"

This attribute sets the background colour for the entire table.

BORDERCOLOR="#rrggbb"
BORDERCOLOR="colorname"

This attribute sets the border colour for the entire table.

BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#rrggbb"
BORDERCOLORLIGHT="colorname"

This attribute sets the border highlight colour for the entire table.

BORDERCOLORDARK="#rrggbb"
BORDERCOLORDARK="colorname"

This attribute sets the border shadow colour for the entire table.

VALIGN="valign"

This attribute sets the vertical alignment for the entire table. "valign"is TOP or BOTTOM.

CLEAR=clear

Here "clear" should be one of LEFT, RIGHT, or ALL and specifies which margin should be clear.

NOFLOW

This attribute prevents text flow around the table and is equivalent to setting the CLEAR attribute on the element after the table.

COLSPEC=colspec

Here colspec is a list of column alignments and widths, separated by spaces. There should be one entry for each column in the table, and each should be an optional capital letter for alignment (one of L (left,) R (right,) C (centre,) J (justify,) or D (decimal)) followed immediately by a number describing the width.

UNITS=units

This makes sense only if the COLSPEC or WIDTH attributes are being used and specifies the units to be used for the column or table widths. units should be one of

en: widths are in en spaces, proportional to font size

relative: column widths are percentage of entire table width, table width is percentage of entire window width

pixels: widths are in pixels

DP="character"

Here "character" is the character (the default is ".") to be used in aligning for decimal point alignment.

NOWRAP

This attribute prevents word wrap within table entries.

In the attributes above that refer to it, rrggbb is a six digit hexadecimal number with the first two digits specifying the red value, the middle two the green value, and the last two the blue value. Some sample colour values:

red

FF0000

green

00FF00

blue

0000FF

black

000000

white

FFFFFF

grey

888888

yellow

FFFF00

cyan

00FFFF

Microsoft Explorer supports the use of colour names in the BGCOLOR, BORDERCOLOR, BORDERCOLORLIGHT, and BORDERCOLORDARK attributes. Valid colours are: Aqua, Black, Blue, Fuchsia, Gray, Green, Lime, Maroon, Navy, Olive, Purple, Red, Silver, Teal,Yellow, and White.

Table Body

Support:

3.0+

<TBODY> table body </TBODY>

The TBODY tag is used to group together a number of rows within a table, for assigning ID or STYLE values.

CLASS=type

This attribute indicates the class that the element belongs too.

ID=value

This attribute specifies a unique value for the element over the docuement.

STYLE=css1 properties

This attribute specifies the style information.

Table Column

Support:

3.0+

<COL> content </COL>
<COL ALIGN=alignment> content </COL>
<COL SPAN=number> content </COL>


The <COL> tag sets the properties of one table column at a time. Do not use this tag with a COLGROUP element.

The ALIGN attribute specifies the text alignment in the cells within the colums. The values for "alignment" are LEFT, MIDDLE and RIGHT and the default is MIDDLE.

Table Column Group

Support:

3.0+

<COLGROUP> column data </COLGROUP>
<COLGROUP ALIGN="align"> column data </COLGROUP>
<COLGROUP VALIGN="valign"> column data </COLGROUP>
<COLGROUP HALIGN="halign"> column data </COLGROUP>
<COLGROUP WIDTH="width"> column data </COLGROUP>
<COLGROUP SPAN="number"> column data </COLGROUP>

The COLGROUP tag sets the properties of one or more table columns.

The HALIGN attribute specifies the horizontal alignment of text in the cells for the column group.. The values are LEFT, RIGHT and CENTER (the default.) The VALIGN attribute sets the vertical alignment for the column. The values are TOP, MIDDLE (the default,) and BOTTOM. The SPAN attribute sets the number of consecutive columns for the group. The WIDTH attribute specifies the width of each column in the column group.

Table Data

Support:

3.2

1.1+

2.0+

<TD attributes>

Valid only in a TR, the table data tag defines a table cell. The attributes are:

COLSPAN="number"

the number of columns this cell occupies.

ROWSPAN="number"

the number of rows this cell occupies.

NOWRAP

This attribute prevents word wrap within the cell.

ALIGN="align"

governs the alignment of the text within the table cell. "align" can be LEFT, RIGHT or CENTER.

VALIGN="align"

governs the alignment of the text within the table cell. "align" can be TOP, MIDDLE, BOTTOM, or BASELINE.

BGCOLOR="#rrggbb"
BGCOLOR="colorname"

This attribute sets the background colour for the table cell.

BORDERCOLOR="#rrggbb"
BORDERCOLOR="colorname"

This attribute sets the border colour for the table cell.

BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#rrggbb"
BORDERCOLORLIGHT="colorname"

This attribute sets the border highlight colour for the table cell.

BORDERCOLORDARK="#rrggbb"
BORDERCOLORDARK="colorname"

This attribute sets the border shadow colour for the table cell.

In the attributes above that refer to it, rrggbb is a six digit hexadecimal number with the first two digits specifying the red value, the middle two the green value, and the last two the blue value. Some sample colour values:

red

FF0000

green

00FF00

blue

0000FF

black

000000

white

FFFFFF

grey

888888

yellow

FFFF00

cyan

00FFFF

Microsoft Explorer supports the use of colour names in the BGCOLOR, BORDERCOLOR, BORDERCOLORLIGHT, and BORDERCOLORDARK attributes. Valid colours are: Aqua, Black, Blue, Fuchsia, Gray, Green, Lime, Maroon, Navy, Olive, Purple, Red, Silver, Teal,Yellow, and White.

Table Footer

Support:

3.0+

<TFOOT>

Defines the table footer. The footer tag is used to group all footers.

CLASS=type

This attribute indicates the class that the element belongs too.

ID=value

This attribute specifies a unique value for the element over the document.

STYLE=css1 properties

This attribute specifies style the information

Table Head

Support:

3.0+

<THEAD>

The THEAD tag defines the table heading. The THEAD tag is used to group all headers together.

ALIGN=left, center, right, justify

Specifies the alignment of text in the heading, the default is center.

CLASS=type

This attribute indicates the class that the element belongs too.

ID=value

This attribute specifies a unique value for the element over the document.

STYLE=css1 properties

This attribute specifies style the information

VALIGN=middle/top/bottom

This attribute specifies the verticle alignment of text in the heading. The default is middle.

Table Header

Support:

3.2

1.1+

2.0+

<TH attributes>

Valid only in a TR, the table header tag defines a header cell. The attributes are:

COLSPAN="number"

the number of columns this header occupies.

ROWSPAN="number"

the number of rows this header occupies.

NOWRAP

This attribute prevents word wrap within the cell.

ALIGN="align"

governs the alignment of the text within the table cell. "align" can be LEFT, RIGHT or CENTER. Table Header cells default to centred.

VALIGN="align"

governs the alignment of the text within the table cell. "align" can be TOP, MIDDLE, BOTTOM, or BASELINE.

BGCOLOR="#rrggbb"
BGCOLOR="colorname"

This attribute sets the background colour for the header cell.

BORDERCOLOR="#rrggbb"
BORDERCOLOR="colorname"

This attribute sets the border colour for the header cell.

BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#rrggbb"
BORDERCOLORLIGHT="colorname"

This attribute sets the border highlight colour for the header cell.

BORDERCOLORDARK="#rrggbb"
BORDERCOLORDARK="colorname"

This attribute sets the border shadow colour for the header cell.

In the attributes above that refer to it, rrggbb is a six digit hexadecimal number with the first two digits specifying the red value, the middle two the green value, and the last two the blue value. Some sample colour values:

red

FF0000

green

00FF00

blue

0000FF

black

000000

white

FFFFFF

grey

888888

yellow

FFFF00

cyan

00FFFF

Microsoft Explorer supports the use of colour names in the BGCOLOR, BORDERCOLOR, BORDERCOLORLIGHT, and BORDERCOLORDARK attributes. Valid colours are: Aqua, Black, Blue, Fuchsia, Gray, Green, Lime, Maroon, Navy, Olive, Purple, Red, Silver, Teal,Yellow, and White.

Table Row

Support:

3.2

1.1+

2.0+

<TR attributes>

Valid only in a TABLE, the table row tag defines a row of cells that are defined with TH and TD tags. The attributes are:

ALIGN="align"

governs the alignment of the text within the table cell. "align" can be LEFT, RIGHT or CENTER.

VALIGN="align"

governs the alignment of the text within the table cell. "align" can be TOP, MIDDLE, BOTTOM, or BASELINE.

BGCOLOR="#rrggbb"
BGCOLOR="colorname"

This attribute sets the background colour for the table row.

BORDERCOLOR="#rrggbb"
BORDERCOLOR="colorname"

This attribute sets the border colour for the table row.

BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#rrggbb"
BORDERCOLORLIGHT="colorname"

This attribute sets the border highlight colour for the table row.

BORDERCOLORDARK="#rrggbb"
BORDERCOLORDARK="colorname"

This attribute sets the border shadow colour for the table row.

CLASS="class"

class is one of Header, Body, or Footer and allows the browser to arrange for header or footer rows to be displayed as the user scrolls through the document.

Valid only in a TABLE, the table row tag defines a row of cells that are defined with TH and TD tags. The class attribute can be set to one of Header, Body, or Footer to arrange for header or footer rows to be displayed as the user scrolls through the document.

The ALIGN attribute governs the alignment of the cells within the table rows. "align" can be LEFT or RIGHT. If ALIGN is specified for any cell in the row, the cell alignment overrides the row alignment.