How to use width in a table border? - html

Question

I am trying to implement cellpadding and cellspacing in my forum, but I just can't get the width="100%" to work with it.
Is it possible to set a width while using cellpadding or cellspacing in my CSS?
.categories div.category td tr{
padding: 80px;
width: 500px;
}
echo '
<table class="categories">
<caption>Category: ', $row2['category'], '</caption>
<thead>
<tr>
<td colspan="3">
<th colspan="3"><a href="create_music_sub.php?cat='.$row2['id'].'&admin='.$row2['admin'].'">
Click here to Create Sub Category
</a></th>
</td>
</tr><tr>
<div class="category"><th scope="col">Category</th></div>
<th scope="col">Creator</th>
<th scope="col">Date Created</th>
</tr>
</thead><tbody>';

Answer 1

If what you meant is to set the table's width to 100%, this works.
And as for the code you provided there were mistakes:
When you want to use a th you don't use a td with it.
The div.category should be inside the tr > th not wrapping it.
When you're posting a question please remove the php fragments and provide a working fiddle for us to be able to help you faster.
Please look at the code to see what I did differently. I think the problem was in your html
table{
border:1px solid black;
width: 100%;
}
tr, th, td{
border:1px solid black;
}
td,th{
padding: 10px;
}
/*If you want the last column to be smaller you can change one of them to a certain width*/
.creator{
width:20%;
}
<table class="categories">
<caption>Category: 1</caption>
<thead>
<tr>
<th colspan="3">
Click here to Create Sub Category
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="col">
<div class="category">Category</div>
</th>
<th scope="col">Creator</th>
<th scope="col">Date Created</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th colspan="2" scope="col">
<div class="category">Category</div>
</th>
<th scope="col">Creator</th>
</tr>
</thead>
</table>
<table class="categories">
<caption>Category: 1</caption>
<thead>
<tr>
<th colspan="3">
Click here to Create Sub Category
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="col">
<div class="category">Category</div>
</th>
<th scope="col">Creator</th>
<th scope="col">Date Created</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th colspan="2" scope="col">
<div class="category">Category</div>
</th>
<th scope="col" class="creator">Creator</th>
</tr>
</thead>
</table>