stretch a background-image across a table's td using html/css - html

Question

I have a table and want a certain background to be stretched across the width of the TD, whatever the width may be.
My CSS for the relevant td is currently like this:
.tools .theader
{
margin:1px;background-color:#ffffcc;
background:url(../images/td_bg.png) no-repeat center center;
}
and the HTML goes something like this:
<table class'tools'>
<tr>
<td class='theader' colspan=2>
Background
</td>
...
Here's an image of what I get in result:
So you can see the blue bevelled background fits exactly in the center of each td. I want it to stretch to reach the edges of the td so that the whole td looks bevelled. How can this be done?

Answer 1

You can use css gradient instead
HTML
<table class'tools'>
<tr>
<td class='theader' colspan="2">
<span>Background</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
CSS
.theader > span{
color:white;
padding:6px 10px;
background: #fffcfc; /* Old browsers */
background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #fffcfc 0%, #2989d8 12%, #2989d8 51%, #207cca 96%, #ffffff 100%); /* FF3.6+ */
background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%,#fffcfc), color-stop(12%,#2989d8), color-stop(51%,#2989d8), color-stop(96%,#207cca), color-stop(100%,#ffffff)); /* Chrome,Safari4+ */
background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #fffcfc 0%,#2989d8 12%,#2989d8 51%,#207cca 96%,#ffffff 100%); /* Chrome10+,Safari5.1+ */
background: -o-linear-gradient(top, #fffcfc 0%,#2989d8 12%,#2989d8 51%,#207cca 96%,#ffffff 100%); /* Opera 11.10+ */
background: -ms-linear-gradient(top, #fffcfc 0%,#2989d8 12%,#2989d8 51%,#207cca 96%,#ffffff 100%); /* IE10+ */
background: linear-gradient(to bottom, #fffcfc 0%,#2989d8 12%,#2989d8 51%,#207cca 96%,#ffffff 100%); /* W3C */
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#fffcfc', endColorstr='#ffffff',GradientType=0 ); /* IE6-9 */
}
DEMO
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