What's The Correct Scope Value To Use For An HTML Table Cell ...

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Learn more about Labs What’s the correct scope value to use for an HTML <th> table cell than spans several columns? Ask Question Asked 15 years, 6 months ago Modified 8 years, 2 months ago Viewed 9k times 7

Say you’ve got an HTML table, with a <th> cell that spans several columns, e.g.

<table> <tr> <th colspan="3" scope="?">Scores</th> <!-- ...more headings here... --> </tr> <tr> <th scope="col">English</th> <th scope="col">Maths</th> <th scope="col">Science</th> <!-- ...more sub-headings here... --> </tr> <tr> <td>12</td> <td>16</td> <td>20</td> <!-- ...more cells here... --> </tr> </table>

What’s the correct value for the scope attribute for the spanning header cell? col seems incorrect as it’s heading several columns, but colgroup does’t seem right if I don’t actually have any colgroup tags.

• html
• html-table
• accessibility

Share Improve this question Follow edited Sep 25, 2016 at 16:17 Brian Tompsett - 汤莱恩 5,8757272 gold badges6161 silver badges133133 bronze badges asked Jun 7, 2009 at 19:37 Paul D. WaitePaul D. Waite 98.7k5757 gold badges202202 silver badges271271 bronze badges Add a comment |

3 Answers 3

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The WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind) group has a great article on creating accessible data tables. Overall, they recommend avoiding spanned rows or columns, as screen readers cannot interpret the markup reliably.

Short of avoiding spanned columns altogether, I've had really good luck using the id/headers attributes in combination with the scope attribute. Although the markup is more verbose, this seems to simplify things for JAWS, and as a result it has less trouble interpreting the data.

This is what your example would look like with id/headers:

<table> <tr> <th id="scores" colspan="3">Scores</th> </tr> <tr> <th id="english" scope="col">English</th> <th id="maths" scope="col">Maths</th> <th id="science" scope="col">Science</th> </tr> <tr> <td headers="scores english">12</td> <td headers="scores maths">16</td> <td headers="scores science">20</td> </tr> </table> Share Improve this answer Follow answered Jun 9, 2009 at 21:35 Dave LockhartDave Lockhart 1,14111 gold badge1111 silver badges99 bronze badges 1

• 1 Great stuff, thanks. I’d lean on the side of the screen readers supporting the spec rather than everyone coding to their quirks, but it’s great to document the quirks. – Paul D. Waite Commented Jun 10, 2009 at 12:43

Add a comment | 5

According to the second example table in the HTML spec, it’s colgroup, despite the lack of colgroup tags.

http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/tables.html#h-11.4.1

Share Improve this answer Follow answered Jun 7, 2009 at 19:38 Paul D. WaitePaul D. Waite 98.7k5757 gold badges202202 silver badges271271 bronze badges Add a comment | 1

Perhaps the caption feature may be better suited for you...

<table> <caption>Scores</caption> <thead> <tr> <th scope="col">English</th> <th scope="col">Maths</th> <th scope="col">Science</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>12</td> <td>16</td> <td>20</td> </tr> </tbody> </table>

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/caption

Share Improve this answer Follow answered Dec 8, 2013 at 21:38 MetalAdamMetalAdam 57622 gold badges99 silver badges2828 bronze badges 2

• Ah — yes quite possibly. The actual use case I had in mind was a table with more columns than in my example HTML, so the heading that spans several columns didn’t actually span the entire table. I’ll amend the example accordingly. – Paul D. Waite Commented Dec 8, 2013 at 23:31
• 1 Gotcha. Dave's response in using the ID's seems to be exactly what you were looking for. You know, 4 years ago :) – MetalAdam Commented Dec 10, 2013 at 14:10

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