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HTML <colgroup> Tag


Example

Set the background color of the three columns with the <colgroup> and <col> tags:

<table>
  <colgroup>
    <col span="2" style="background-color:red">
    <col style="background-color:yellow">
  </colgroup>
  <tr>
    <th>ISBN</th>
    <th>Title</th>
    <th>Price</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>3476896</td>
    <td>My first HTML</td>
    <td>$53</td>
  </tr>
</table>
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Definition and Usage

The <colgroup> tag specifies a group of one or more columns in a table for formatting.

The <colgroup> tag is useful for applying styles to entire columns, instead of repeating the styles for each cell, for each row.

Note: The <colgroup> tag must be a child of a <table> element, after any <caption> elements and before any <thead>, <tbody>, <tfoot>, and <tr> elements.

Tip: To define different properties to a column within a <colgroup>, use the <col> tag within the <colgroup> tag.


Browser Support

Element
<colgroup> Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes


Differences Between HTML 4.01 and HTML5

Most of the attributes in HTML 4.01 are not supported in HTML5.


Attributes

Attribute Value Description
align left
right
center
justify
char
Not supported in HTML5.
Aligns the content in a column group
char character Not supported in HTML5.
Aligns the content in a column group to a character
charoff number Not supported in HTML5.
Sets the number of characters the content will be aligned from the character specified by the char attribute
span number Specifies the number of columns a column group should span
valign top
middle
bottom
baseline
Not supported in HTML5.
Vertical aligns the content in a column group
width pixels
%
relative_length
Not supported in HTML5.
Specifies the width of a column group

Global Attributes

The <colgroup> tag also supports the Global Attributes in HTML.


Event Attributes

The <colgroup> tag also supports the Event Attributes in HTML.


Related Pages

HTML DOM reference: ColumnGroup Object


Default CSS Settings

Most browsers will display the <colgroup> element with the following default values:

Example

colgroup {
    display: table-column-group;
}
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