This page is In Progress

Notice: The WebPlatform project, supported by various stewards between 2012 and 2015, has been discontinued. This site is now available on github.

col

Summary

The col element (<col>) specifies properties for each column within a <colgroup> element in a <table>.

Overview Table

DOM Interface
HTMLTableColElement

Examples

This example uses the col element to specify characteristics for default columns in a table.

<HTML>
<BODY>
<TABLE BORDER="2" RULES="groups">
<!-- RULES is set to "groups", which has no effect in this sample. For this
attribute to work, you must use COLSPAN to define the groups of columns.-->
    <COL SPAN="2" STYLE="color:red">
    <COL STYLE="color:blue">
    <TR>
        <TD>This column is in the first group.</TD>
        <TD>This column is in the first group.</TD>
        <TD>This column is in the second group.</TD>
    </TR>
    <TR>
        <TD>This column is in the first group.</TD>
        <TD>This column is in the first group.</TD>
        <TD>This column is in the second group.</TD>
    </TR>
</TABLE>
</BODY>
</HTML>

Notes

Remarks

COL elements can be nested within a COLGROUP element. If this is done, the nested COL attributes override the COLGROUP attributes. You can use the COL and COLGROUP elements for similar purposes. However, you must use the COLGROUP element to determine where table internal dividing lines (rules) should go. This is illustrated in the following example. Use the SPAN attribute to specify the number of table columns that the COLGROUP defines. This attribute has a default value equal to one. The table object and its associated elements have a separate table object model, which uses different methods than the general object model. For more information on the table object model, see Building Tables Dynamically.

Related specifications

HTML 5.1
W3C Working Draft
HTML 5
W3C Recommendation
HTML 4.01
W3C Recommendation

See also

Related articles

HTML

Tables

Other articles

Attributions