HTML Table Examples with colgroup and col

Xah Lee, 2011-07-07, 2012-03-31

HTML table has a “colgroup” tag. It is used to indicate that several columns are a group. It has no effect on the rendering of the table, but is useful together with CSS to color columns (instead of adding a class/style to every “td” tag). 〔☛ CSS Basics〕 Example:

Here's the source code:

<table border="1">
<colgroup span="1" style="background-color:silver"></colgroup>
<colgroup span="3" style="background-color:aqua"></colgroup>
<colgroup span="2" style="background-color:yellow"></colgroup>
<colgroup span="3" style="background-color:gray"></colgroup>
<tr>
<td>1,1</td>
<td>1,2</td>
<td>1,3</td>
<td>1,4</td>
<td>1,5</td>
<td>1,6</td>
<td>1,7</td>
<td>1,8</td>
<td>1,9</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>2,1</td>
<td>2,2</td>
<td>2,3</td>
<td>2,4</td>
<td>2,5</td>
<td>2,6</td>
<td>2,7</td>
<td>2,8</td>
<td>2,9</td>
</tr>
</table>

The “colgroup” tag must come before any {tr, thead, tbody, tfoot}.

Using “col” tag

Alternatively, you can also use the “col” tag instead of “colgroup with span”.

Here's the relevant source code:

<colgroup style="background-color:silver"><col span="1" /></colgroup>
<colgroup style="background-color:aqua"><col span="3" /></colgroup>
<colgroup style="background-color:yellow"><col span="2" /></colgroup>
<colgroup style="background-color:gray"><col span="3" /></colgroup>

The “col” tag must always be used inside “colgroup”.

Alternatively, you can just repeat the “col” tag instead of using the “span” attribute. For example, write:

<colgroup><col /><col /></colgroup>

instead of:

<colgroup><col span="2" /></colgroup>

Browser Support

The {colgroup, col} tags are supported in all major browsers as of 2011-07.

See also:

• Simple HTML Table Examples
• Table with thead, tbody, tfoot
• Styling HTML Table with CSS
• Pure CSS Table without “table” Tag

• http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec-author-view/the-colgroup-element.html#the-colgroup-element