Changing Column Width

Now that you we have used all the right semantics you might want to change the width of each column – as of right now, each column is 33% wide. Let’s say we want the first column to be 40% of the table and the two remaning columns to be 30% (as 40% + 30% +30% = 100%).

In order to do this, we use the <col> element. This element is to be placed between the <table> tag and the <thead> tag and we use the style attribute to define the width of the columns. The <col> element is a self-closing element and you need one for every columns of you table. Let’s have an example:

<table border="1" width="100%">
	<col style="width:40%">
	<col style="width:30%">
	<col style="width:30%">
	<thead>
	<tr>
		<th>Fruits</th>
		<th>Vitamin A</th>
		<th>Vitamin C</th>
	</tr>
	</thead>
	<tbody>
	<tr>
		<th>Apples</th>
		<td>98 ui</td>
		<td>8.4 mg</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<th>Oranges</th>
		<td>295 ui</td>
		<td>69.7 mg</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<th>Bananas</th>
		<td>76 ui</td>
		<td>10.3 mg</td>
	</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

This way, you can control how wide the columns of the table should be. I have used the style attribute and the value "width:40%" as an example, but ideally, you should have this in your stylesheet file, as this has everything to do with looks and nothing with the semantics.

I you did use your stylesheet you could create three classes where you defined the width of each column, and then your markup would look something like this:

<table border="1">
	<col class="column-one">
	<col class="column-two">
	<col class="column-three">
	<thead>
	<tr>
		<th>Fruits</th>
		<th>Vitamin A</th>

What you have learned

• Every table starts and end with the <table> element
• You use the attributes colspan and rowspan to merge cells
• A table is divided into a head (<thead> element) and a body (the <tbody> element)
• Inside the head and body the table is divided into rows using the <tr> element
• You don’t define columns in HTML tables, but instead you use the <td> element to define the individual data cells
• Whenever you need to define a heading cell, use the <th> element instead of the <td> element