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HTML table tag

Note: If you don't know what a tag is and/or how you must use it we recommend you to read our HTML tags and attributes tutorial that you can find in our HTML tutorials section.

Description

The HTML table tag inserts a table in the document. This tag is the container for all the parts of tables: captions (HTML caption tag), headers (HTML thead tag), header's cells (HTML th tag), footers (HTML tfoot tag), body (HTML tbody tag), rows (HTML tr tag), column attributes (HTML col tag), column groups (HTML colgroup tag), cells (HTML td tag).

Attributes

id (name)

The "id" attribute assigns an identifier to the associated element. This identifier must be unique in the document and can be used to refer to that element.

Example:

Code begin
<p id="paragraph1">This is the first paragraph named as paragraph1. To dynamically change its properties use this identifier.</p>Code end

class (cdata)

The "class" attribute assigns a class name (or a list of class names separated by spaces) to the container element. It's used with style sheets and tells the browser the class to which the element is associated with. A class gives visual attributes to elements.

Example:

Code begin
<p class="references">This article is based on the book "Wind in the trees" by Jhon L. Brooks</p>

<p class="references important">This article is based on the book "Wind in the trees" by Jhon L. Brooks... and is more important than the one before.</p>Code end

style (style)

Defines a visual style of this element. Is a better practice to define styles attributes in external style sheets grouping them in classes. Attributes in the "style" parameter must preserve this order "name : value" and be separated by a semi-colon.

If you're writing XHTML code it's recommended not to use this attribute and try style sheet classes (with the "class" attribute).

Example:

Code begin
<p style="color: #0000FF; font-size: 12pt">This is a paragraph with a defined style</p>
<p>And this is another text without style.</p>Code end

title (text)

Indicates a title for the element. Used to give a short description about the element that is usually shown as a "tool tip" when the user put the mouse pointer over the element.

Example:

Code	View
<a title="HTMLQuick.com" href="http://www.htmlquick.com">HTML code</a>	HTML code

lang (langcode)

Specifies the language of an element's content. The default value in "unknown".

When writing XHTML code the syntax "xml:lang" represents a preferred alternative in XHTML 1.0 and a replacement in XHTML 1.1 (e.g., xml:lang="en").

Example:

Code begin
<p lang="en">This is a paragraph in english.</p>
<p lang="es">Este es un p&aacute;rrafo en espa&ntilde;ol.</p>Code end

dir

Specifies the text direction of the element's contents and attribute values, as well as tables directionality. It has two possible values that are case insensitive:

RTL: Right to left.
LTR: Left to right.

Example:

Code begin
<q lang="he" dir="rtl">...a Hebrew quotation...</q>Code end

summary (text)

Provides a summary of the table purpose and structure.

align

This attribute have been deprecated

Sets the alignment of the table. Possible values are (case-insensitive):

left: The table is aligned to the left of the available space.
center: The table is aligned to the center of the available space.
right: The table is aligned to the right of the available space.

width (length)

Specifies the desired width of the entire table.

frames

Specifies which sides of the frame surrounding the table will be visible. Possible values are (case-insensitive):

void: No sides. This is the default value.
above: The top side only.
below: The bottom side only.
hsides: The top and bottom sides only.
vsides: The right and left sides only.
lhs: The left-hand side only.
rhs: The right-hand side only.
box: All four sides.
border: All four sides.

rules

Decides which rules will appear between cells within a table. Possible values (case-insensitive):

none: No rules. This is the default value.
groups: Rules will be shown between row groups (HTML thead tag, HTML tfoot tag, and HTML tbody tag) and column groups (HTML colgroup tag and HTML col tag) only.
rows: Rules will be rendered between rows only.
cols: Rules will appear between columns only.
all: Rules be rendered between all rows and columns.

border (pixels)

Specifies the width in pixels of the border of the frame around a table.

Example:

Code

View

Cell 1	Cell 2	Cell 3
Cell 4	Cell 5	Cell 6

cellspacing (length)

Defines the space to be left between cells and between the table border and the cell border that's closer to it.

Example:

Code

View

<table cellspacing="10" border="1" summary="Example table showing the use of the cellspacing attribute.">
<tr>
<td>...Content...</td>
<td>...Content...</td>
</tr>
</table>

...Content...

cellpadding (length)

Defines the space to be left between the border of a cell and it's content. It works as cells' margins.

Example:

Code

View

<table cellpadding="10" border="1" summary="Example table showing the use of the cellpadding attribute.">
<tr>
<td>...Content...</td>
<td>...Content...</td>
</tr>
</table>

...Content...

Events

onclick
ondblclick
onmousedown
onmouseup
onmouseover
onmousemove
onmouseout
onkeypress
onkeydown
onkeyup

See complete list and information about events in HTML

Examples

In this example we define a table with grouped columns, grouped rows and many attributes for each tag that will define a visual style.

Code

View

<table border="1" frame="border" rules="groups" summary="Functionality of HTML files in different versions of Internet Explorer">
<caption>Representation of how HTML files works in different versions of Internet Explorer</caption>
<colgroup align="center"></colgroup>
<colgroup></colgroup>
<colgroup align="center" span="2"></colgroup>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>File</th>
<th>Name</th>
<th>4.0</th>
<th>5.0</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tfoot>
<tr>
<th>File</th>
<th>Name</th>
<th>4.0</th>
<th>5.0</th>
</tr>
</tfoot>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>index.html</td>
<td>Ok</td>
<td>Ok</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>links.html</td>
<td>Ok</td>
<td>Ok</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>3</td>
<td>fullfunc.html</td>
<td>-</td>
<td>Ok</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>4</td>
<td>nofunc.html</td>
<td>Ok</td>
<td>Ok</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>5</td>
<td>panel.html</td>
<td>-</td>
<td>Ok</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>6</td>
<td>search.php</td>
<td>Ok</td>
<td>Ok</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>7</td>
<td>send.php</td>
<td>Ok</td>
<td>Ok</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Representation of how HTML files works in different versions of Internet Explorer
File	Name	4.0	5.0
File	Name	4.0	5.0
1	index.html	Ok	Ok
2	links.html	Ok	Ok
3	fullfunc.html	-	Ok
4	nofunc.html	Ok	Ok
5	panel.html	-	Ok
6	search.php	Ok	Ok
7	send.php	Ok	Ok

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