Essential CSS Properties for Styling Tables

CSS Web Development Front End Technology

We can define styles for tables using CSS. The following properties are often used to style <table> and its elements −

border
The CSS border property is used to define border-width, border-style and border-color.
border-collapse
This property is used to specify whether a <table> elements should have a shared or separate border.
caption
The caption-side property is used to vertically position the table caption box.
empty-cells
This property is used to specify the display of empty cells of a table.
table-layout
To define the algorithm to be used by the browser for laying out rows, columns and cells of a table.

Example

The following examples illustrate styling of tables −

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
table, table * {
   border: thin solid;
   padding: 5px;
   font-style: italic;
}
caption {
   caption-side: bottom;
}
td {
   box-shadow: inset 0 0 6px green;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<table>
<caption>Demo caption</caption>
<tr>
<td>demo</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>demo</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>demo</td>
<td>demo</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>

Output

This gives the following output −

Example

Live Demo

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
div {
   display: flex;
   float: left;
}
table {
   border: 3px solid black;
}
td {
   border: 3px solid lightgreen;
}
th {
   border: 3px solid lightblue;
}
#t2 {
   border-collapse: collapse;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h2>Team Rankings</h2>
<div>
<table id="t1">
<tr>
<th>Team (Test)</th>
<th>Rank </th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>India </td>
<td>1 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Australia</td>
<td>2</td>
</tr>
</table>    
</div>
<div>
<table id="t2">
<tr>
<th>Team (ODI) </th>
<th>Rank </th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>India </td>
<td>1 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>England</td>
<td>2</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</body>
</html>