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Learn more about Labs Fixed Table Cell Width Ask Question Asked 14 years ago Modified 3 years, 3 months ago Viewed 754k times 200

A lot of people still use tables to layout controls, data etc. - one example of this is the popular jqGrid. However, there is some magic happening that I cant seem to fathom (its tables for crying out loud, how much magic could there possibly be?)

How is it possible to set a table's column width and have it obeyed like jqGrid does!? If I try to replicate this, even if I set every <td style='width: 20px'>, as soon as the content of one of those cells is greater than 20px, the cell expands!

Any ideas or insights?

• html
• css
• layout
• html-table

Share Improve this question Follow edited Dec 10, 2013 at 18:21 C R 2,24255 gold badges3333 silver badges4141 bronze badges asked Nov 15, 2010 at 15:21 JimboJimbo 22.9k4343 gold badges125125 silver badges162162 bronze badges 0 Add a comment |

7 Answers 7

Sorted by: Reset to default Highest score (default) Trending (recent votes count more) Date modified (newest first) Date created (oldest first) 285

You could try using the <col> tag manage table styling for all rows but you will need to set the table-layout:fixed style on the <table> or the tables css class and set the overflow style for the cells

http://www.w3schools.com/TAGS/tag_col.asp

<table class="fixed"> <col width="20px" /> <col width="30px" /> <col width="40px" /> <tr> <td>text</td> <td>text</td> <td>text</td> </tr> </table>

and this be your CSS

table.fixed { table-layout:fixed; } table.fixed td { overflow: hidden; } Share Improve this answer Follow edited Sep 29, 2020 at 17:36 answered Nov 15, 2010 at 15:27 hunterhunter 63.4k1919 gold badges114114 silver badges115115 bronze badges 7

• 18 col wouldn't work in html5, set width of individual td instead by inline css or css classes – Pankaj Phartiyal Commented May 22, 2013 at 17:58
• 12 The accepted answer does not work unless you explicitly apply a width for the desired table. Works perfectly whether you use a unit or a percentage. Figured I'd point this out since @totymedli's answer didn't get any votes and I didn't want users to ignore it. However, the word-break suggestion isn't necessary unless that's what you're aiming for. – thebdawk05 Commented Jul 29, 2013 at 18:12
• What happens when you have rows with only 1 TD element that spans multiple columns? Using your sample code, if you had <TD colspan="3"> in a row by itself would it be 90px? – sab669 Commented Jun 17, 2015 at 13:43
• Thanks it helped. For data overlapping, add this table.fixed td { word-wrap: break-word; }. – Parag Tyagi Commented Jan 5, 2016 at 10:52
• The word-break suggestion isn't necessary, but it is useful for the rest of SO users and quite pertinent to the question, as overflowing content in fixed width tables is almost certain to ocurr in most scenarios. – Amy Pellegrini Commented Feb 24, 2017 at 16:41

| Show 2 more comments 114

Now in HTML5/CSS3 we have better solution for the problem. In my opinion this purely CSS solution is recommended:

table.fixed {table-layout:fixed; width:90px;}/*Setting the table width is important!*/ table.fixed td {overflow:hidden;}/*Hide text outside the cell.*/ table.fixed td:nth-of-type(1) {width:20px;}/*Setting the width of column 1.*/ table.fixed td:nth-of-type(2) {width:30px;}/*Setting the width of column 2.*/ table.fixed td:nth-of-type(3) {width:40px;}/*Setting the width of column 3.*/ <table class="fixed"> <tr> <td>Veryverylongtext</td> <td>Actuallythistextismuchlongeeeeeer</td> <td>We should use spaces tooooooooooooo</td> </tr> </table>

You need to set the table's width even in haunter's solution. Otherwise it doesn't work. Also a new CSS3 feature that vsync suggested is: word-break:break-all;. This will break the words without spaces in them to multiple lines too. Just modify the code like this:

table.fixed { table-layout:fixed; width:90px; word-break:break-all;}

Final result

Share Improve this answer Follow edited May 23, 2017 at 11:33 CommunityBot 111 silver badge answered Jun 28, 2013 at 6:42 totymedlitotymedli 30.9k2222 gold badges138138 silver badges169169 bronze badges 3

• If you throw a row in with a colspan, this seems to break this solution. Any suggestions on how to utilize this solution with a table that contains colspan > 1? – Eric K Commented Jan 16, 2014 at 16:31
• @QuantumDynamix I fixed this by including as the first row, a row with no colspans, just all individual columns with widths. I then hid that row with 0 height, border:none, visibility:hidden, padding:0px etc., then the second row is the first one I want seen where there are colspans. The first row with individual fixed width cells establishes the widths. – AaronLS Commented Mar 18, 2014 at 16:42
• @totymedli Any ideas how to get my table to take on the sum of all my column widths? My table is generated dynamically a bit and I so can't calculate in advance the table width, but I don't want to use 100% because that stretches some elements. – AaronLS Commented Mar 18, 2014 at 16:43

Add a comment | 20 table td { table-layout:fixed; width:20px; overflow:hidden; word-wrap:break-word; } Share Improve this answer Follow edited May 9, 2013 at 15:50 Bakudan 19.5k99 gold badges5555 silver badges7474 bronze badges answered Nov 15, 2010 at 15:27 ajrealajreal 47.3k1111 gold badges9494 silver badges119119 bronze badges 2

• 11 Are you sure you can use table-layout on a td element? – Nick Commented Feb 8, 2014 at 1:18
• @Nick - it works okay. Hovewer i have to add min-width and max-width property also (same value as width), and then it became truly fixed width. – Denis Khay Commented May 11, 2018 at 14:27

Add a comment | 18

I had one long table td cell, this forced the table to the edges of the browser and looked ugly. I just wanted that column to be fixed size only and break the words when it reaches the specified width. So this worked well for me:

<td><div style='width: 150px;'>Text to break here</div></td>

You don't need to specify any kind of style to table, tr elements. You may also use overflow:hidden; as suggested by other answers but it causes for the excess text to disappear.

Share Improve this answer Follow answered Dec 7, 2015 at 11:44 TarikTarik 4,5064040 silver badges3636 bronze badges 1

• 2 Or you can use max-width instead of width where needed. This will allow you not to break the text unless you reach your width limit. And the table cell won't have empty space if your text is smaller than the specified width. <td><div style='max-width: 150px;'>Text to break here</div></td> – Tarik Commented Jul 11, 2016 at 14:51

Add a comment | 6

for FULLSCREEN width table:

• table width MUST be 100%

• if need N colunms, then THs MUST be N+1

example for 3 columns: table.fixed { table-layout: fixed; width: 100%; } table.fixed td { overflow: hidden; } <table class="fixed"> <col width=20 /> <col width=20 /> <col width=20 /> <tr> <th>1</th> <th>2</th> <th>3</th> <th>FREE</th> </tr> <tr> <td>text111111111</td> <td>text222222222</td> <td>text3333333</td> </tr> </table>

Share Improve this answer Follow edited Aug 2, 2021 at 6:10 answered Jun 4, 2020 at 10:25 Ramil GilfanovRamil Gilfanov 59211 gold badge88 silver badges1212 bronze badges Add a comment | 2 table { table-layout:fixed; width:200px; } table tr { height: 20px; }

10x10

Share Improve this answer Follow edited Jan 19, 2013 at 23:46 hafichuk 10.7k1111 gold badges4040 silver badges5454 bronze badges answered Jan 19, 2013 at 23:19 user1993774user1993774 2922 bronze badges Add a comment | -2 table { table-layout:fixed; } td,th { width:20px; word-wrap:break-word; }

:first-child ... :nth-child(1) or ...

Share Improve this answer Follow answered Apr 13, 2015 at 19:58 xhdixxhdix 15511 silver badge77 bronze badges Add a comment | Highly active question. Earn 10 reputation (not counting the association bonus) in order to answer this question. The reputation requirement helps protect this question from spam and non-answer activity.

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Linked

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