Web Application Development Lab
Module3
HTML TABLES
A table is a representation of data arranged in rows and columns. Really, it's more like a
spreadsheet. In HTML, with the help of tables, you can arrange data like images, text, links and
so on into rows and columns of cells.
The use of tables in the web has become more popular recently because of the amazing
HTML table tags that make it easier to create and design them.
HTML table tag is used to display data in tabular form (row * column). There can be many
columns in a row.
We can create a table to display data in tabular form, using <table> element, with the help of
<tr> , <td>, and <th> elements.
In Each table, table row is defined by <tr> tag, table header is defined by <th>, and table
data is defined by <td> tags.
HTML tables are used to manage the layout of the page e.g. header section, navigation bar,
body content, footer section etc. But it is recommended to use div tag over table to manage the
layout of the page.
Tag Description
<table> It defines a table.
<tr> It defines a row in a table.
<th> It defines a header cell in a table.
<td> It defines a cell in a table.
<caption> It defines the table caption.
<colgroup> It specifies a group of one or more columns in a table for
formatting.
<col> It is used with <colgroup> element to specify column properties
for each column.
<tbody> It is used to group the body content in a table.
<thead> It is used to group the header content in a table.
<tfooter> It is used to group the footer content in a table.
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Week Days in Table</title>
</head>
<body>
<table border = "1">
<tr>
<th>1</th>
<th>2</th>
<th>3</th>
<th>4</th>
<th>5</th>
<th>6</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>MONDAY</td>
<td>TUESDAY</td>
<td>WEDNESDAY</td>
<td>THURSDAY</td>
<td>FRIDAY</td>
<td>SATURDAY</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Here, the border is an attribute of <table> tag and it is used to put a border across all the cells. If
you do not need a border, then you can use border = "0".
Table Heading
Table heading can be defined using <th> tag. This tag will be put to replace <td> tag, which is
used to represent actual data cell. Normally you will put your top row as table heading as shown
below, otherwise you can use <th> element in any row. Headings, which are defined in <th> tag
are centered and bold by default.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>HTML Table Header</title>
</head>
<body>
<table border = "1">
<tr>
<th>Name</th>
<th>Salary</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Ramesh Raman</td>
<td>5000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Shabbir Hussein</td>
<td>7000</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Cellpadding Attributes
To adjust the white space in your table cells, we can use cellpadding to provide space between
cell borders and the content within a cell.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>HTML Table Cellpadding</title>
</head>
<body>
<table border = "1" cellpadding = "5">
<tr>
<th>Name</th>
<th>Salary</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Ramesh Raman</td>
<td>5000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Shabbir Hussein</td>
<td>7000</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Cellspacing Attributes
To adjust the white space in your table cells, we can use cellspacing attribute to provide space
between table cells.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>HTML Table Cellpadding</title>
</head>
<body>
<table border = "1" cellspacing = "5">
<tr>
<th>Name</th>
<th>Salary</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Ramesh Raman</td>
<td>5000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Shabbir Hussein</td>
<td>7000</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Colspan Attribute
The colspan attribute is used to merge two or more columns into a single column.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>HTML Table Colspan</title>
</head>
<body>
<table border = "1">
<tr>
<th>Column 1</th>
<th>Column 2</th>
<th>Column 3</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Row 1 Cell 1</td>
<td>Row 1 Cell 2</td>
<td>Row 1 Cell 3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Row 2 Cell 1</td>
<td>Row 2 Cell 2</td>
<td>Row 2 Cell 3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan = "3">Row 3 Cell 1</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Rowspan Attribute
The rowspan attribute is used to merge two or more rows into a single row.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>HTML Table Rowspan</title>
</head>
<body>
<table border = "1">
<tr>
<th>Column 1</th>
<th>Column 2</th>
<th>Column 3</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td rowspan = "2">Row 1 Cell 1</td>
<td>Row 1 Cell 2</td>
<td>Row 1 Cell 3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Row 2 Cell 2</td>
<td>Row 2 Cell 3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Row 3 Cell 1</td>
<td>Row 3 Cell 2</td>
<td>Row 3 Cell 3</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Combined rowspan and colspan attributes in a table
Example:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>HTML Table Colspan/Rowspan</title>
</head>
<body>
<table border = "1">
<tr>
<th>Column 1</th>
<th>Column 2</th>
<th>Column 3</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td rowspan = "2">Row 1 Cell 1</td>
<td>Row 1 Cell 2</td>
<td>Row 1 Cell 3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Row 2 Cell 2</td>
<td>Row 2 Cell 3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan = "3">Row 3 Cell 1</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Tables Backgrounds
You can set table background using one of the following two ways −
bgcolor attribute − You can set background color for whole table or just for one cell.
background attribute − You can set background image for whole table or just for one
cell.
You can also set border color also using bordercolor attribute.
Note − The bgcolor, background, and bordercolor attributes deprecated in HTML5. Do not use
these attributes.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>HTML Table Background</title>
</head>
<body>
<table border = "1" bordercolor = "green" bgcolor = "yellow">
<tr>
<th>Column 1</th>
<th>Column 2</th>
<th>Column 3</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td rowspan = "2">Row 1 Cell 1</td>
<td>Row 1 Cell 2</td>
<td>Row 1 Cell 3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Row 2 Cell 2</td>
<td>Row 2 Cell 3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan = "3">Row 3 Cell 1</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Here is an example of using background attribute. Here we will use an image available in
/images directory.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>HTML Table Background</title>
</head>
<body>
<table border = "1" bordercolor = "green" background = "/images/[Link]">
<tr>
<th>Column 1</th>
<th>Column 2</th>
<th>Column 3</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td rowspan = "2">Row 1 Cell 1</td>
<td>Row 1 Cell 2</td><td>Row 1 Cell 3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Row 2 Cell 2</td>
<td>Row 2 Cell 3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan = "3">Row 3 Cell 1</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Table Height and Width
You can set a table width and height using width and height attributes. You can specify table
width or height in terms of pixels or in terms of percentage of available screen area.
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>HTML Table Width/Height</title>
</head>
<body>
<table border = "1" width = "400" height = "150">
<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>
</body>
</html>
Table Caption
The caption tag will serve as a title or explanation for the table and it shows up at the top of the
table. This tag is deprecated in newer version of HTML/XHTML.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>HTML Table Caption</title>
</head>
<body>
<table border = "1" width = "100%">
<caption>This is the caption</caption>
<tr>
<td>row 1, column 1</td><td>row 1, columnn 2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>row 2, column 1</td><td>row 2, columnn 2</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Table Header, Body, and Footer
Tables can be divided into three portions − a header, a body, and a foot. The head and foot are
rather similar to headers and footers in a word-processed document that remain the same for
every page, while the body is the main content holder of the table.
The three elements for separating the head, body, and foot of a table are −
<thead> − to create a separate table header.
<tbody> − to indicate the main body of the table.
<tfoot> − to create a separate table footer.
A table may contain several <tbody> elements to indicate different pages or groups of data. But
it is notable that <thead> and <tfoot> tags should appear before <tbody>
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>HTML Table</title>
</head>
<body>
<table border = "1" width = "100%">
<thead>
<tr>
<td colspan = "4">This is the head of the table</td>
</tr>
</thead>
<tfoot>
<tr>
<td colspan = "4">This is the foot of the table</td>
</tr>
</tfoot>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Cell 1</td>
<td>Cell 2</td>
<td>Cell 3</td>
<td>Cell 4</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Nested Tables
You can use one table inside another table. Not only tables you can use almost all the tags inside
table data tag <td>.
Example
Following is the example of using another table and other tags inside a table cell.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>HTML Table</title>
</head>
<body>
<table border="1">
<tr>
<th></th>
<th>Morning</th>
<th>Afternoon</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Saturday</th>
<td>Cycling</td>
<td>Fishing</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Sunday</th>
<td>Rowing</td>
<td>
<table border="1">
<tr>
<th>Group 1</th>
<th>Group 2</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Water skiing</td>
<td>Wake boarding</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Example2:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>HTML Table</title>
</head>
<body>
<table border = "1" width = "100%">
<tr>
<td>
<table border = "1" width = "50%">
<tr>
<th>Name</th>
<th>Salary</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Ramesh Raman</td>
<td>5000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Shabbir Hussein</td>
<td>7000</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>