| Person | Most interest in | Age |
|---|---|---|
| Chris | HTML tables | 22 |
| Dennis | Web accessibility | 45 |
| Sarah | JavaScript frameworks | 29 |
| Karen | Web performance | 36 |
| Average age | 33 | |
table {
border-collapse: collapse;
border: 2px solid rgb(140 140 140);
font-family: sans-serif;
font-size: 0.8rem;
letter-spacing: 1px;
caption {
caption-side: bottom;
padding: 10px;
font-weight: bold;
thead,
tfoot {
background-color: rgb(228 240 245);
th,
td {
border: 1px solid rgb(160 160 160);
padding: 8px 10px;
td:last-of-type {
text-align: center;
tbody > tr:nth-of-type(even) {
background-color: rgb(237 238 242);
tfoot th {
text-align: right;
tfoot td { th, th, th, thead > tr, th, caption { th { thead > tr:nth-of-type(2) { thead > tr:last-of-type > th:nth-of-type(2) { tfoot th, table { tbody { th, th { th:last-child, tr:last-child td {
font-weight: bold;
Attributes
This element includes the
global attributes
Deprecated attributes
The following attributes are deprecated and should not be used. They are documented below for reference when updating existing code and for historical interest only.
align
Deprecated
Specifies the horizontal alignment of the table within its parent element. The possible
enumerated
values are
left
center
, and
right
. Use the
margin-inline-start
and
margin-inline-end
CSS properties instead, as this attribute is deprecated.
bgcolor
Deprecated
Defines the background color of the table. The value is an HTML color; either a
6-digit hexadecimal RGB code
, prefixed by a
, or a
color keyword
. Other CSS
values are not supported. Use the
background-color
CSS property instead, as this attribute is deprecated.
border
Deprecated
Defines, as a non-negative integer value (in pixels), the size of the frame surrounding the table. If set to
, the
frame
attribute is set to void. Use the
border
CSS property instead, as this attribute is deprecated.
cellpadding
Deprecated
Defines the space between the content of a cell and its border. This attribute is obsolete: instead of using it, apply the
padding
CSS property to the
and
elements.
cellspacing
Deprecated
Defines the size of the space between two cells. This attribute is obsolete: instead of using it, set the
border-spacing
CSS property on the
element. Note that this has no effect if the
element's
border-collapse
CSS property is set to
collapse
frame
Deprecated
Defines which side of the frame surrounding the table must be displayed. The possible
enumerated
values are
void
above
below
hsides
vsides
lhs
rhs
box
and
border
. Use the
border-style
and
border-width
CSS properties instead, as this attribute is deprecated.
rules
Deprecated
Defines where rules (borders) are displayed in the table. The possible
enumerated
values are
none
(default value),
groups
, and
elements),
rows
(horizontal lines),
cols
(vertical lines), and
all
(border around every cell). Use the
border
CSS property on the appropriate table-related elements, as well as on the
itself, instead, as this attribute is deprecated.
summary
Deprecated
Defines an alternative text that summarizes the content of the table. Use the
element instead, as this attribute is deprecated.
width
Deprecated
Specifies the width of the table. Use the
width
CSS property instead, as this attribute is deprecated.
Note:
While no HTML specification includes
height
as a
attribute, some browsers support a non-standard interpretation of
height
. The unitless value sets a minimum absolute height in pixels. If set as a percent value, the minimum table height will be relative to the parent container's height. Use the
min-height
CSS property instead, as this attribute is deprecated.
Visual layout of table contents
Following elements are part of the table structure:
The
box establishes a table formatting context. Elements inside the
generate rectangular boxes. Each box occupies a number of table cells according to the following rules:
The row boxes fill the table in the source code order from top to bottom. Each row box occupies one row of cells.
A row group box occupies one or more row boxes.
Column boxes are placed next to each other in source code order. Depending on the value of the
dir
attribute, the columns are laid in left-to-right or right-to-left direction. A column box occupies one or more columns of table cells.
A column group box occupies one or more column boxes.
A cell box may span over multiple rows and columns. User agents trim cells to fit in the available number of rows and columns.
Table cells do have padding. Boxes that make up a table do not have margins.
Table layers and transparency
For styling purpose the table elements may be thought of as being put on six superimposed layers:
The background set on an element in one layer will be visible only if the layers above it have transparent background. A missing cell is rendered as if an anonymous table-cell box occupied that place.
Captions
By supplying a
element whose value clearly and concisely describes the table's purpose, it helps the people decide if they need to check the rest of the table content or skip over it.
This helps people navigating with the aid of assistive technology such as a screen reader, people experiencing low vision conditions, and people with cognitive concerns.
MDN Adding a caption to your table with
Caption & Summary • Tables • W3C WAI Web Accessibility Tutorials
Scoping rows and columns
The
scope
attribute on header cells (
elements) is redundant in simple contexts, because scope is inferred. However, some assistive technologies may fail to draw correct inferences, so specifying header scope may improve user experiences. In complex tables,
scope
can be specified to provide necessary information about the cells related to a header.
MDN table accessibility guide
Tables with two headers • Tables • W3C WAI Web Accessibility Tutorials
Tables with irregular headers • Tables • W3C WAI Web Accessibility Tutorials
H63: Using the scope attribute to associate header cells and data cells in data tables | W3C Techniques for WCAG 2.0
Complicated tables
Assistive technologies such as screen readers may have difficulty parsing tables that are so complex that header cells can't be associated in a strictly horizontal or vertical way. This is typically indicated by the presence of the
colspan
and
rowspan
attributes.
Ideally, consider alternate ways to present the table's content, including breaking it apart into a collection of smaller, related tables that don't have to rely on using the
colspan
and
rowspan
attributes. In addition to helping people who use assistive technology understand the table's content, this may also benefit people with cognitive concerns who may have difficulty understanding the associations the table layout is describing.
If the table cannot be broken apart, use a combination of the
id
and
headers
attributes to programmatically associate each table cell with the header(s) (
elements) the cell is associated with.
MDN table accessibility guide
Tables with multi-level headers • Tables • W3C WAI Web Accessibility Tutorials
H43: Using id and headers attributes to associate data cells with header cells in data tables | Techniques for W3C WCAG 2.0
Examples
The examples below include tables of progressively increasing complexity. See also our beginner's
Styling tables
guide for table styling information including common, useful techniques.
Since the structure of a
involves the use of several table-related HTML elements along with various associated attributes, the following examples are intended to provide a simplified explanation that covers the basics and common standards. Additional and more detailed information can be found on the corresponding linked pages.
These table examples demonstrate how to create an
accessible
table that is structured with HTML and styled with
CSS
Because of how HTML tables are structured, the
markup
can quickly grow. For this reason, it is important to clearly define the table's purpose and final appearance to create the appropriate structure. A logical structure developed with
semantic
markup is not only easier to style, but enables useful and accessible tables that can be understood and navigated by everyone, including search engines and users of assistive technologies.
The first example is basic, with subsequent examples growing in complexity. First, we will develop a very basic HTML table structure for the table. The first two examples contain no table section groups such as a defined head, body, or foot, and involve no cell spanning or explicitly defined cell relationships. Not even a caption is provided. As we work through the examples, they will be progressively enhanced to include all the table features that a complex data table should possess.
Basic table
This example includes a
very
basic table with three rows and two columns. To demonstrate default browser table styles, no CSS has been included in this example.
HTML
The table rows are defined with
elements, and the columns are defined with table header and data cells within them. The first row contains the header cells (
elements) that serve as column headers for the data cells (
elements). Each element (
or
) per row is in its respective column—that is, the first element of a row is in the first column, and the second element of that row is in the second column.
htmlName Age Maria Sanchez 28 Michael Johnson 34
Result
There is no custom
CSS
or
user stylesheet
applied to this table. The styling results purely from the
user-agent stylesheet
Expanded table with header cells
This example extends the
basic table
, extending the content and adding basic CSS styles.
HTML
The table comprises four rows (
elements) now, with four columns each. The first row is a row of header cells (The first row contains only
elements). Subsequent rows include a header column (
elements as the first child elements of each row) and three data columns (
elements). As table sectioning elements are not used, the browser automatically defines the content group structure, i.e., all rows are wrapped within the body of the table of an implicit
element.
htmlName ID Member Since Balance Margaret Nguyen 427311 0.00 Edvard Galinski 533175 37.00 Hoshi Nakamura 601942 15.00
CSS
With CSS, we provide the basic styling to create lines around the components of the table to make the data structure clearer. The CSS adds a solid border around the
and around each of the table's cells, including those specified with both
and
elements, demarcating every header and data cells.
css
table {
border: 2px solid rgb(140 140 140);
td {
border: 1px solid rgb(160 160 160);
Result
Specifying table cell relations
Before moving on to extend the table in more advanced ways, it's advisable to improve
by defining relationships between the header and data cells (
and
elements).
HTML
This is accomplished by introducing the
scope
attribute on the
elements and setting the values to the corresponding
col
(column) or
row
value.
htmlName ID Member Since Balance Margaret Nguyen 427311 0.00 Edvard Galinski 533175 37.00 Hoshi Nakamura 601942 15.00
The CSS and visual result are unchanged—the adaptation provides valuable contextual information for assistive technologies such as screen readers to help identify which cells the headers relate to.
Note:
If the table structure is even more complex, the (additional) use of the
headers
attribute on the
and
elements may improve accessibility and help assistive technologies identify the relationships between cells; see
Complicated tables
Explicitly specifying table section groups
In addition to improving accessibility by
specifying cell relations
, the
semantics
of the table can be improved by introducing table section groups.
HTML
Since the first row (
element) contains only column header cells and provides the header for the rest of the table's contents, it can be enclosed in the
element to explicitly specify that row as the head section of the table. Moreover, what is automatically accomplished by the browser can also be defined explicitly—the body section of the table, which contains the main data of the table, is specified by enclosing the corresponding rows in the
element. The explicit use of the
element helps the browser to create the intended table structure, avoiding unwanted results.
htmlName ID Member Since Balance Margaret Nguyen 427311 0.00 Edvard Galinski 533175 37.00 Hoshi Nakamura 601942 15.00
Once again, the CSS and visual result are unchanged—specifying such table section groups provides valuable contextual information for assistive technologies, including screen readers and search engines, as well as for styling in the CSS, which will be shown in a later example.
Column and row spanning
In this example, we extend the table even more by adding a column and introducing a multi-row head section.
HTML
Building on the table created so far, a new column for a "Membership End Date" is added in each body row with the
element. An additional row (
element) is also added within the head section (
element) to introduce a "Membership Dates" header as a heading for the "Joined" and "Canceled" columns.
The creation of the second header row involves adding
colspan
and
rowspan
attributes to the
elements to allocate the header cells to the correct columns and rows.
htmlName ID Membership Dates Balance Joined Canceled Margaret Nguyen 427311 n/a 0.00 Edvard Galinski 533175 37.00 Hoshi Nakamura 601942 n/a 15.00
table {
border: 2px solid rgb(140 140 140);
td {
border: 1px solid rgb(160 160 160);
Result
The head section now has two rows, one with the headers (
elements) "Name", "ID", "Membership Dates", and "Balance", and a "Membership Dates" header with two subheaders that are in a second row: "Joined" and "Canceled". This is accomplished by:
The first row's "Name", "ID", and "Balance" header cells span both table header rows by using the
rowspan
attribute, making them each two rows tall.
The first row's "Membership Dates" header cell spans two columns using the
colspan
attribute, causing it to be two columns wide.
The second row contains only the two header cells "Joined" and "Canceled" because the other three columns are merged with the cells in the first row that span two rows. The two header cells are correctly positioned under the "Membership Dates" header.
Table caption and column summary
It's a common and advisable practice to provide a summary for the table's content, allowing users to quickly determine the table's relevance. Furthermore, the "Balance" column is summarized by displaying the sum of the balances of the individual members.
HTML
A table summary is added by using a table
caption
element) as the first child element of the
. The caption provides the
accessible name
or
accessible description
for the table.
Lastly, a table foot section (
element) is added below the body, with a row that summarizes the "Balance" column by displaying a sum. The elements and attributes introduced earlier are applied.
html
Status of the club members 2021Name ID Membership Dates Balance Joined Canceled Margaret Nguyen 427311 n/a 0.00 Edvard Galinski 533175 37.00 Hoshi Nakamura 601942 n/a 15.00 Total balance 52.00
table {
border: 2px solid rgb(140 140 140);
td {
border: 1px solid rgb(160 160 160);
Result
Basic table styling
Let's apply a basic style to the table to adjust the typeface and add a
background-color
to the head and foot rows. The HTML is unchanged this time, so let's dive right into the CSS.
Status of the club members 2021Name ID Membership Dates Balance Joined Canceled Margaret Nguyen 427311 n/a 0.00 Edvard Galinski 533175 37.00 Hoshi Nakamura 601942 n/a 15.00 Total balance 52.00
CSS
While a
font
property is added to the
element here to set a more visually appealing typeface (or an abominable sans-serif typeface, depending on your personal opinion), the interesting part is the second style, where the
elements located within the
and
are styled adding a light blue
background-color
. This is a way to quickly apply a background color to all the cells in specific sections simultaneously.
css
table {
border: 2px solid rgb(140 140 140);
font:
16px "Open Sans",
"Helvetica",
"Arial",
sans-serif;
tfoot > tr {
background-color: rgb(228 240 245);
td {
border: 1px solid rgb(160 160 160);
Result
Advanced table styling
Now we'll go all-out, with styles on rows in the header and body areas both, including alternating row colors, cells with different colors depending on position within a row, and so forth. Let's take a look at the result first this time.
Result
Here's what the final table will look like:
There is no change to the HTML again. See what proper preparation of the HTML structure can do?
Status of the club members 2021Name ID Membership Dates Balance Joined Canceled Margaret Nguyen 427311 n/a 0.00 Edvard Galinski 533175 37.00 Hoshi Nakamura 601942 n/a 15.00 Total balance 52.00
CSS
The CSS is much more involved this time. It's not complicated, but there's a lot going on. Let's break it down.
Here the
border-collapse
and
border-spacing
properties are added to eliminate spacing between cells and collapse borders that touch one another to be a single border instead of winding up with double borders. Additionally, the
is placed at the
bottom
of the table using the
caption-side
property:
css
table {
border-collapse: collapse;
border-spacing: 0;
border: 2px solid rgb(140 140 140);
font:
16px "Open Sans",
"Helvetica",
"Arial",
sans-serif;
caption-side: bottom;
padding: 10px;
font-weight: bold;
Next, the
padding
property is used to give all the table cells space around their content. The
vertical-align
property aligns the content of the header cells to the
bottom
of the cell, which can be seen on the cells in the head that span two rows:
css
th,
td {
border: 1px solid rgb(160 160 160);
padding: 4px 6px;
vertical-align: bottom;
The next CSS rule sets the
background-color
of all
elements in the table's head (as specified using
). Then the bottom border of the head is set to be a two-pixel wide line. Notice, however, that we're using the
:nth-of-type
selector to apply the
border-bottom
property to the
second
row in the head. Why? Because the head is made of two rows that are spanned by some of the cells. That means there are actually two rows there; applying the style to the first row would not give us the expected result:
css
thead > tr {
background-color: rgb(228 240 245);
border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(140 140 140);
Let's style the two header cells "Joined" and "Canceled" with green and red hues to represent the "good" of a new member and the "bummer" of a canceled membership. Here we dig into the last row of the table's head section using the
:last-of-type
selector and give the first header cell in it (the "Joined" header) a greenish color, and the second header cell in it (the "Canceled" header) a reddish hue:
css
thead > tr:last-of-type > th:nth-of-type(1) {
background-color: rgb(225 255 225);
background-color: rgb(255 225 225);
Since the first column should stand out as well, some custom styling is added here too. This CSS rule styles the first header cell in each row of the table's body with the
text-align
property to left-justify the member names, and with a somewhat different
background-color
css
tbody > tr > th:first-of-type {
text-align: left;
background-color: rgb(225 229 244);
It's common to help improve the readability of table data by alternating row colors—this is sometimes referred to as "zebra striping". Let's add a bit of
background-color
to every even row:
css
tbody > tr:nth-of-type(even) {
background-color: rgb(237 238 242);
Since it's standard practice to right-justify currency values in tables, let's do that here. This just sets the
text-align
property for the last
in each body row to
right
css
tbody > tr > td:last-of-type {
text-align: right;
Finally, some styling similar to the head is applied to the foot section of the table to make it stand out as well:
css
tfoot > tr {
border-top: 2px dashed rgb(140 140 140);
background-color: rgb(228 240 245);
tfoot td {
text-align: right;
font-weight: bold;
Displaying large tables in small spaces
A common issue with tables on the web is that they don't natively work very well on small screens when the amount of content is large, and the way to make them scrollable isn't obvious, especially when the markup may come from a CMS and cannot be modified to have a wrapper.
This example provides one way to display tables in small spaces. We've hidden the HTML content as it is very large, and there is nothing remarkable about it. The CSS is more useful to inspect in this example.13 equals: 23 equals: 33 equals: 43 equals: 53 equals: 63 equals: 73 equals: row 1: 1 row 1: 8 row 1: 27 row 1: 64 row 1: 125 row 1: 216 row 1: 343 row 2: 1 row 2: 8 row 2: 27 row 2: 64 row 2: 125 row 2: 216 row 2: 343 row 3: 1 row 3: 8 row 3: 27 row 3: 64 row 3: 125 row 3: 216 row 3: 343 row 4: 1 row 4: 8 row 4: 27 row 4: 64 row 4: 125 row 4: 216 row 4: 343 row 5: 1 row 5: 8 row 5: 27 row 5: 64 row 5: 125 row 5: 216 row 5: 343 row 6: 1 row 6: 8 row 6: 27 row 6: 64 row 6: 125 row 6: 216 row 6: 343 row 7: 1 row 7: 8 row 7: 27 row 7: 64 row 7: 125 row 7: 216 row 7: 343 row 8: 1 row 8: 8 row 8: 27 row 8: 64 row 8: 125 row 8: 216 row 8: 343 row 9: 1 row 9: 8 row 9: 27 row 9: 64 row 9: 125 row 9: 216 row 9: 343 row 10: 1 row 10: 8 row 10: 27 row 10: 64 row 10: 125 row 10: 216 row 10: 343 row 11: 1 row 11: 8 row 11: 27 row 11: 64 row 11: 125 row 11: 216 row 11: 343 row 12: 1 row 12: 8 row 12: 27 row 12: 64 row 12: 125 row 12: 216 row 12: 343 row 13: 1 row 13: 8 row 13: 27 row 13: 64 row 13: 125 row 13: 216 row 13: 343 row 14: 1 row 14: 8 row 14: 27 row 14: 64 row 14: 125 row 14: 216 row 14: 343 row 15: 1 row 15: 8 row 15: 27 row 15: 64 row 15: 125 row 15: 216 row 15: 343 row 16: 1 row 16: 8 row 16: 27 row 16: 64 row 16: 125 row 16: 216 row 16: 343 row 17: 1 row 17: 8 row 17: 27 row 17: 64 row 17: 125 row 17: 216 row 17: 343 row 18: 1 row 18: 8 row 18: 27 row 18: 64 row 18: 125 row 18: 216 row 18: 343 row 19: 1 row 19: 8 row 19: 27 row 19: 64 row 19: 125 row 19: 216 row 19: 343 row 20: 1 row 20: 8 row 20: 27 row 20: 64 row 20: 125 row 20: 216 row 20: 343
CSS
When looking at these styles you'll notice that table's
display
property has been set to
block
. While this allows scrolling, the table loses some of its integrity, and table cells try to become as small as possible. To mitigate this issue we've set
white-space
to
nowrap
on the
. However, we don't do this for the
to avoid long titles forcing columns to be wider than they need to be to display the data.
To keep the table headers on the page while scrolling down we've set
position
to sticky on the
elements. Note that we have
not
set
border-collapse
to
collapse
, as if we do the header cannot be separated correctly from the rest of the table.
Given that the
has a fixed size, the
overflow
set to
auto
is the important part here, as it makes the table scrollable.
css
table,
th,
td {
border: 1px solid black;
overflow: auto;
width: 100%;
max-width: 400px;
height: 240px;
display: block;
margin: 0 auto;
border-spacing: 0;
white-space: nowrap;
td {
padding: 5px 10px;
border-top-width: 0;
border-left-width: 0;
position: sticky;
top: 0;
background: white;
vertical-align: bottom;
td:last-child {
border-right-width: 0;
border-bottom-width: 0;
Result
Technical summary
Content categories
Flow content
Permitted content
In this order:
an optional
element,
zero or more
elements,
an optional
element,
either one of the following:
zero or more
elements
one or more
elements
an optional
element
Tag omission
None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory.
Permitted parents
Any element that accepts flow content
Implicit ARIA role
table
Permitted ARIA roles
Any
DOM interface
HTMLTableElement
Specifications
Specification
HTML
# the-table-element
Browser compatibility
See also
Learn: HTML table basics
: Other table-related elements
background-color
: CSS property to set the background color of the table
border
border-collapse
border-spacing
: CSS properties to control the aspect of cell borders, rules, and frame
margin
padding
: CSS properties to align the table and set spacing on cell content
text-align
: CSS property to horizontally align table cell content
vertical-align
: CSS property to vertically align table cell content
width
: CSS property to control the width of the table
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