table elements acts different with align="center" vs css text-align: center; - html

I've got table elements within a table. The parent table has a width of 100% and the child table has a width of 300px. I want the child to be centered, so I tried with css to set it with text-align: center;. (https://jsfiddle.net/wrzo7LLb/1/)
<table class="body">
<tr>
<td class="align center"> <!-- CSS text-align: center; -->
<table class="wrapper">
<tr>
<td>
some text
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
But that doesn't work. And then I tried it with align="center" and that did work. (https://jsfiddle.net/wrzo7LLb/)
<table class="body">
<tr>
<td align="center"> <!-- align="center" -->
<table class="wrapper">
<tr>
<td>
some text
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Could someone explain to me why align="center" works, but text-align: center; doesn't?
I know I can set margin: 0 auto;, but that doesn't explain why align="center" works and the other doesn't.

Semantically (and technically) speaking, text-align should only be used to align inline level elements, of which a table is not.
The align property on a table doesn't refer to text but to
align
This enumerated attribute indicates how the table must be aligned inside the containing document.
As per the table docs above, align has been deprecated, and it is suggested that you do indeed use margin:0 auto; to "center" a table element
Usage Note
Do not use this attribute, as it has been deprecated. The <table> element should be styled using CSS. Set margin-left and margin-right to auto or margin to 0 auto to achieve an effect that is similar to the align attribute.

text-align:center only works for inline elements and obviously table is a table element.
set and try again
table table {
display:inline;
}

Related

Div usage in tables in HTML/CSS?

I'm trying to write some HTML/CSS to display a certain row with some of the elements left-aligned and some of them in the center. This was my HTML code:
<tr class="mainInfo" id="header">
<td> Item </td>
<td> Color </td>
<td> Size </td>
<div class="mid">
<td> Subtotal </td>
<td> Tax </td>
<td> Total </td>
</div>
</tr>
And this is my CSS code:
.mid {
text-align: center;
}
.mainInfo {
font: bold 13px Tahoma;
}
#header {
background-color: #68891;
color: white;
}
But the last three elements are not moving to the center, and I really don't understand why not. I tried putting class="mid" in the <td> tags and that worked, but doesn't that defeat the purpose of DRY?
Fiddle Demo
You cannot put a div instead of td element.
You should validate your HTML code with w3 validator.
If you'll do so you'll see you get this error message:
document type does not allow element "DIV" here; missing one of "TH", "TD" start-tag
Maybe you can do it this way:
<table>
<tr class="mainInfo" id="header">
<td> Item </td>
<td> Color </td>
<td> Size </td>
<td class="center">Subtotal</td>
<td class="center">Tax</td>
<td class="center">Total</td>
</tr>
</table>
JSFiddle example
No, you should not put divs inside tr's or tables.
And you should not use tr's or td's without table-element.
<table>
<tr>
<td>hello world</td>
<!-- This is bare minimum to use tables properly -->
</tr>
</table>
You can insert whatever(not tr or td, but could start new table) you want inside TD-elements though.
It's possible to use other elements to replace these standard ones with css display-property set to table-row etc., but you should stick to conventional tags.
Use colspan/rowspan to span over multiple table columns or rows.
CSS classes are designed to be used as often you need/want to. Only IDs should appear once per page.
Of course you should always keep the DRY concept in mind but in your case it's totally fine. It wouldn't if you would set your .mid class to every <td> because in that case you could just set the properties directly to the <td> element.
middle is not a valid value for text-align, so I'm going to assume, in your CSS, that's meant to be vertical-align. If so, it's because vertical-align will only apply to table cells, not divs - that would explain why it is only being successfully applied to your tds.
Additionally, you shouldn't really put a div inside a table (and shouldn't put a td inside of that) but that's not related to your problem.
Assign one class for left alignment and other for center like so...
.left {
text-align:left;
}
.center {
text-align:center;
}
Asign class to TD elements
<tr class="mainInfo" id="header">
<td class='left'> Item </td>
<td class='center'> Color </td>
</tr>

display:inline behaves differently when used inside a <td>

Iam trying to add html piece of code to an existing html page. I am trying to use a DIV inside TD, then display:inline css attribute for DIV, doesn't work as expected. Any reason why ?
<table>
<tr>
<td width="20%" class="oddrow"></td>
<td width="80%" class="oddrow-l">
<div style="display: inline;"> Hello</div>
<div style="display: inline;">
Hiii
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
You have to set width for your table:
table {
width: 100%;
}
http://codepen.io/anon/pen/LKizB
add your display:inline to the td style as well. http://jsfiddle.net/v5Ld3/
<table>
<tr>
<td width="20%" class="oddrow"></td>
<td width="80%" class="oddrow-l" style"display: inline">
<div style"display: inline">Hello</div>
<div style"display: inline">Hiii</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Use <span> instead of <div>. Also as others mentioned your table nor td have width defined, so they will use as small width as possible. span is inline anyway and could change that.
If you don't want the whole table being width: 100% you may just set width for the problematic column.

Put an element of <td> always on top not in center

I have a table with 2 columns
<table border="2">
<tr>
<td>
<div id="menupage" >
...
...
</div>
</td>
<td align="center" >
<div id="contentpage" >
...
...
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
I want to keep always in top not in center if the size of <div id="contentpage" > is big
You can use the CSS vertical-align property to align the TD contents to the TOP:
vertical-align:top;
See this working Fiddle Example!
e.g.,
<table border="2">
<tr>
<td style="vertical-align:top;">
<div id="menupage">
...
</div>
</td>
<td align="center" style="vertical-align:top;">
<div id="contentpage" >
...
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
You probably are looking at valign or vertical-align.
<td align="center" valign="top">
<div id="contentpage">
</div>
</td>
See http://jsfiddle.net/nivas/Y84pS/
Note that valign is a deprecated attribute (so are align and border. See Index of Attributes for a complete list.). The recommended way to get these functionality is via CSS, using vertical-align, text-align and border.
The second table in my jsfiddle example uses CSS, and gets the same functionality.
If you're going to use tables then you might as well just use valign.
eg: <div id="menupage" valign="top">
If you want to use CSS you can use vertical-align.
You could set all td's in your stylesheet like so:
td {
vertical-align: top;
}
I've no idea of your experience etc so I won't go on, but you should avoid tables for layout. You'll save yourself a lot of downvotes and "don't use tables" comments.

How to force min-height on table

I have this code :
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" style="width:415px">
<tbody>
<tr valign="top">
<td style="font-family:Arial;min-height:60px;font-size:12px;line-height:14px;">
This is my text that I need in 2 lines
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td style="font-size:12px;line-height:14px">
Second Line
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
As you can see, the first tr/td should be height 60px (min-height:60px) but in fact it isn't.
For many reasons, I can't use height directly (this code is formatted trought back office system, in a newsletter).
So, how can I take the whole height on the td trought min-height?
Also, tried putting min-height:60px; on tr, but nothing change...
min-height doesn't work for table elements:
In CSS 2.1, the effect of 'min-width' and 'max-width' on tables, inline tables, table cells, table columns, and column groups is undefined.
I can only assume this applies to td and tr as well.
What should always work is wrapping the content in a div, and applying min-height to that, as shown in this JSFiddle:
<td style="font-family:Arial;min-height:60px;font-size:12px;line-height:14px;">
<div style="min-height: 60px; background-color: green">
This is my text that I need in 2 lines
</div>
</td>
Edit: You say this doesn't work with Outlook.
Alternative idea: Place a 60 px tall image in the td, and make it float: left:
<td>
<img src="..." style="float: left">
</td>
Use <td height="60"> not CSS height or min-height
For HTML email set your table cell as <td height="60"> and it will treat that as the min-height. If your content is more than 60px, it will expand accordingly.
Put a DIV in the cell, style the DIV instead.
Min-height doesn't works on tables.
It is sometimes useful to constrain the height of elements to a certain range. Two properties offer this functionality: min-height & max-height
But these can't be used on non-replaced inline elements, table columns, and column groups.
You can't set min-height and min-width, but you can use some CSS3 for achievements this same effect.
.default-table table {
border-collapse: collapse;
}
.default-table table td {
padding: 0;
}
.default-table tr:before {
width: 0px;
content: '';
float: left;
overflow: hidden;
height: 28px;
font-size: 0;
}
.default-table {
overflow: hidden;
}
<div class="default-table">
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Steve</td>
<td>Smith</td>
<td>stevesmith#gmail.com</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Jone</td>
<td>Polanski</td>
<td>jonep#gmail.com</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
but if u having collapse or padding in td. You must give for .default-table table minus margin-left.
HTML :
<table></table>
CSS :
table{
height:0px; /*Set any facultative length value to Height (percentage value doesn't work)*/
min-height:100vh;
}
That's how I always resolve this problem ...
Add display block
<td style="font-family:Arial;min-height:60px;font-size:12px;line-height:14px;display:block;">
Here's a solution that works in Outlook (tested) and other e-mail clients:
<td style="mso-line-height-rule:exactly;line-height:300px;"> </td>
This is cleaner than using an image, which could negatively affect your spam score, and does the exact same thing.
If you have other content in the <td> that you don't want to have that line height, you can just wrap the non-breaking space in a <span> and set the line-height on that tag:
<td><span style="mso-line-height-rule:exactly;line-height:300px"> </span>**Other content without 300px line-height here**</td>
The reason height or min-height works on <div> tags and not <td> is because <td> are set to display:table-cell and do not respect height the same way that display:block (<div>) elements do.
I have resolved this issue by adding display:block; to its style as
<td style="display:block; min-height:200px;">
min-height does not work in td, Set height that will work like min-height and automatic increase height if needed. That is worked for me
Here is a solution that does not depend on the height in pixels. It works in all email clients:
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" style="width:415px">
<tbody>
<tr valign="top">
<td style="font-family:Arial;font-size:12px;line-height:14px;">
This is my text that I need in 2 lines
</td>
<td style="font-family:Arial;font-size:12px;line-height:14px;">
<br/><br/>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td style="font-size:12px;line-height:14px">
Second Line
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
The solution works by adding a zero-width column with two lines to the right of the first one. It uses the  character, which is a non-breaking zero-width space.
It may be reviving a 2012 post, for those who searched and found this post like me:
Note: Check these addresses for the email client support before using this method, at the time of writing this answer, the support was around 50% -ish.
E-mail client support range of :first-child
E-mail client support range of ::before
table tr:first-child td:before {
min-height: 100px;
display: block;
content: ""
}
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
</tr>
</table>
What I found !!!, In tables CSS td{height:60px;} works same as CSS td{height:60px;}

Prevent a table in overflow:auto div from shrinking

I'm having a bit of an issue getting some stylesheet behavior that I want. I'm not even sure if it's possible. Basically I'm attempting to place a table with a variable number of cells with static cell width in a DIV with overflow: auto, and my goal is that when the tables width extends past the width of the container DIV that it becomes scrollable.
This isn't the case. The cells get shrunk together. A very basic representation (with inline styles for ease on this; not actually in the application haha) of the code:
<div style="width: 1000px; overflow-x: auto;">
<table>
<tr>
<td style="width:400px;">
This
</td>
<td style="width:400px;">
Should
</td>
<td style="width:400px;">
Scroll!
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
Is there anyway I can do this with CSS, or am I going to have to go back to setting the width inline on a second div containing the table through calculations?
Works if you set the width on the table itself.
<table style="width:1200px;">
The td will always shrink to the necessary size, they won't push the table wider in that situation.
using CSS can done like below but make sure you use id or class for applying css if you have more then one table or div.
<style>
div { width: 400px; overflow-x: auto; }
table { width:1200px; }
table td { width:400px; }
</style>
<div>
<table>
<tr>
<td>
This
</td>
<td>
Should
</td>
<td>
Scroll!
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
This should help
<table style="width: max-content;">