Aligning text in a table with CSS - html

Question

I have a really simple table with two rows and two columns. I want the text in the first column to be right-aligned and the second column to be left-aligned. I'm sure this is really easy but I just can't figure it out.
Here's the HTML:
<table>
<tr><td>Previous:</td><td>Link 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Next:</td><td>Link 2</td></tr>
</table>
How would I do this?

Answer 1

I would use classes in this instance. You could get fancy but this is the best way for supporting.
CSS
.alignright { text-align: right; }
.alignleft { text-align: left; }
HTML
<td class="alignright"> </td>
<td class="alignleft"> </td>
You could go further by adding padding, margins and further classes. Depending on your TABLE css you might need to add some padding so that the cells aren't all padding: 0 and not showing any alignment.

Answer 2

You can either use :first-child to target the cells in the first column:
td {
text align: left;
}
td:first-child {
text-align: right;
}
But :first-child: doesn’t work in IE 6, so you might want to add a class to the cells in the first column, and use that instead:
<table>
<tr><td class="first">Previous:</td><td>Link 1</td></tr>
<tr><td class="first">Next:</td><td>Link 2</td></tr>
</table>
td {
text align: left;
}
td.first {
text-align: right;
}
As written, this will apply to all <td> elements, so you might also want to add a class to your table and limit the styles to <td>s in that table:
<table class="simple">
<tr><td class="first">Previous:</td><td>Link 1</td></tr>
<tr><td class="first">Next:</td><td>Link 2</td></tr>
</table>
table.simple td {
text align: left;
}
table.simple td.first {
text-align: right;
}

Answer 3

As an alternative and given your scenario and if you are able to - why don't you replace the <td>'s in your second column with <th>'s and then the CSS will be really simple:
td { text-align:right; }
th { text-align:left; }

Answer 4

set different classes on each td element
<style>
td.raligned {text-align: right;}
td.leftaligned {text-align: left;}
</style>
<table>
<tr>
<td class="raligned">blah</td>
<td class="leftaligned">blah</td>
</tr>
</table>

Answer 5

It's easy. Create a class of CSS
<style>
.aleft {text-align: left;}
.aright {text-align: right;}
</style>
Now add the classes to your table, it's easy.
<table>
<tr><td class="aright">Previous:</td><td>Link 1</td></tr>
<tr><td class="aleft">Next:</td><td>Link 2</td></tr>
</table>

Answer 6

HTML
<table>
<tr>
<td class="right-align">Previous:</td>
<td class="left-align">Link 1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="right-align">Next:</td>
<td class="left-align">Link 2</td>
</tr>
</table>​
And your stylesheet..
td.right-align {
text-align: right;
}
td.left-align {
text-align: left;
}

Answer 7

Use
<col align=right>
inside the <table> element, to right-align the first column on IE, and
td:first-child { text-align: right; }
to do the same on more standards-conforming browsers.
Data cells (td elements) are left-aligned by default, so you need not do anything with the second column.

Answer 8

Personally I would recommend not using tables and use a CSS solution that being said here's a jsfiddle option. basically the same as other have said but with jsfiddle you can manipulate it and make changes so you can see them immediately.
http://jsfiddle.net/rhoenig/rnAVH/