<colgroup>: The Table Column Group element
Baseline Widely available
This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.
The <colgroup>
HTML element defines a group of columns within a table.
Try it
Attributes
This element includes the global attributes.
Deprecated attributes
The following attributes are deprecated and should not be used. They are documented below for reference when updating existing code and for historical interest only.
align
Deprecated-
Specifies the horizontal alignment of each column group cell. The possible enumerated values are
left
,center
,right
,justify
, andchar
. When supported, thechar
value aligns the textual content on the character defined in thechar
attribute and the offset defined by thecharoff
attribute. Note that the descendant<col>
elements may override this value using their ownalign
attribute. Use thetext-align
CSS property on the<td>
and<th>
elements instead, as this attribute is deprecated.Note: Setting
text-align
on the<colgroup>
element has no effect as<td>
and<th>
elements are not descendants of the<colgroup>
element, and therefore they do not inherit from it.If the table does not use a
colspan
attribute, use thetd:nth-of-type(an+b)
CSS selector per column, wherea
is the total number of the columns in the table andb
is the ordinal position of the column in the table, e.g.td:nth-of-type(7n+2) { text-align: right; }
to right-align the second column cells.If the table does use a
colspan
attribute, the effect can be achieved by combining adequate CSS attribute selectors like[colspan=n]
, though this is not trivial. bgcolor
Deprecated-
Defines the background color of each column group cell. The value is an HTML color; either a 6-digit hexadecimal RGB code, prefixed by a
#
, or a color keyword. Other CSS<color>
values are not supported. Use thebackground-color
CSS property instead, as this attribute is deprecated. char
Deprecated-
Does nothing. It was originally intended to specify the alignment of the content to a character of each column group cell. Typical values for this include a period (
.
) when attempting to align numbers or monetary values. Ifalign
is not set tochar
, this attribute is ignored, though it will still be used as the default value for thealign
of the<col>
elements which are members of this column group. charoff
Deprecated-
Does nothing. It was originally intended to specify the number of characters to offset the column group cell content from the alignment character specified by the
char
attribute. valign
Deprecated-
Specifies the vertical alignment of each column group cell. The possible enumerated values are
baseline
,bottom
,middle
, andtop
. Note that the descendant<col>
elements may override this value using their ownvalign
attribute. Use thevertical-align
CSS property on the<td>
and<th>
elements instead, as this attribute is deprecated.Note: Setting
vertical-align
on the<colgroup>
element has no effect as<td>
and<th>
elements are not descendants of the<colgroup>
element, and therefore they do not inherit from it.If the table does not use a
colspan
attribute, use thetd:nth-of-type()
CSS selector per column, e.g.td:nth-of-type(2) { vertical-align: middle; }
to center the second column cells vertically.If the table does use a
colspan
attribute, the effect can be achieved by combining adequate CSS attribute selectors like[colspan=n]
, though this is not trivial. width
Deprecated-
Specifies a default width for each column in the current column group. In addition to the standard pixel and percentage values, this attribute can take the special form
0*
, which means that the width of each column spanned should be the minimum width necessary to hold the column's contents. Relative widths such as5*
can also be used. Note that the descendant<col>
elements may override this value using their ownwidth
attribute. Use thewidth
CSS property instead, as this attribute is deprecated.
Usage notes
- The
<colgroup>
should appear within a<table>
, after any<caption>
element (if used), but before any<thead>
,<tbody>
,<tfoot>
, and<tr>
elements. - Only a limited number of CSS properties affect
<colgroup>
:background
: The variousbackground
properties will set the background for cells within the column group. As the column group background color is painted on top of the table, but behind background colors applied to the columns (<col>
), the row groups (<thead>
,<tbody>
, and<tfoot>
), the rows (<tr>
), and the individual cells (<th>
and<td>
), backgrounds applied to table column groups are only visible if every layer painted on top of them has a transparent background.border
: The variousborder
properties apply, but only if the<table>
hasborder-collapse: collapse
set.visibility
: The valuecollapse
for a column group results in all cells of the columns in that column group not being rendered, and cells spanning into other columns being clipped. The space these columns in the column group would have occupied is removed. However, the size of other columns is still calculated as though the cells in the collapsed column(s) in the column group are present. Other values forvisibility
have no effect.width
: Thewidth
property defines a minimum width for the columns within the column group, as ifmin-width
were set.
Example
See <table>
for a complete table example introducing common standards and best practices.
This example demonstrates a seven-column table divided into two <colgroup>
elements that span multiple columns.
HTML
Two <colgroup>
elements are used to structure a basic table by creating column groups. The number of columns in each column group is specified by the span
attribute.
<table>
<caption>
Personal weekly activities
</caption>
<colgroup span="5" class="weekdays"></colgroup>
<colgroup span="2" class="weekend"></colgroup>
<tr>
<th>Mon</th>
<th>Tue</th>
<th>Wed</th>
<th>Thu</th>
<th>Fri</th>
<th>Sat</th>
<th>Sun</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Clean room</td>
<td>Football training</td>
<td>Dance Course</td>
<td>History Class</td>
<td>Buy drinks</td>
<td>Study hour</td>
<td>Free time</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Yoga</td>
<td>Chess Club</td>
<td>Meet friends</td>
<td>Gymnastics</td>
<td>Birthday party</td>
<td>Fishing trip</td>
<td>Free time</td>
</tr>
</table>
CSS
Grouped columns can be used to visually highlight the structure using CSS:
table {
border-collapse: collapse;
border: 2px solid rgb(140 140 140);
}
caption {
caption-side: bottom;
padding: 10px;
}
th,
td {
border: 1px solid rgb(160 160 160);
padding: 8px 6px;
text-align: center;
}
.weekdays {
background-color: #d7d9f2;
}
.weekend {
background-color: #ffe8d4;
}
Result
Technical summary
Content categories | None. |
---|---|
Permitted content |
If the span attribute is
present: none.If the attribute is not present: zero or more <col>
element
|
Tag omission |
The start tag may be omitted, if it has a <col>
element as its first child and if it is not preceded by a
<colgroup> whose end tag has been omitted.The end tag may be omitted, if it is not followed by a space or a comment. |
Permitted parents |
A <table> element. The
<colgroup> must appear after any
<caption> element, but before any
<thead> , <tbody> ,
<tfoot> , and
<tr> elements.
|
Implicit ARIA role | No corresponding role |
Permitted ARIA roles | No role permitted |
DOM interface | HTMLTableColElement |
Specifications
Specification |
---|
HTML Standard # the-colgroup-element |
Browser compatibility
BCD tables only load in the browser
See also
- Learn: HTML tables
<caption>
,<col>
,<table>
,<tbody>
,<td>
,<tfoot>
,<th>
,<thead>
,<tr>
: Other table-related elementsbackground-color
: CSS property to set the background color of each column group cellborder
: CSS property to control borders of column group cellstext-align
: CSS property to horizontally align each column group cell contentvertical-align
: CSS property to vertically align each column group cell contentvisibility
: CSS property to hide (or show) cells of a column groupwidth
: CSS property to control the default width for each column in a column group:nth-of-type
,:first-of-type
,:last-of-type
: CSS pseudo-classes to select the desired column cells