HTML Table Colgroup

The <colgroup> element is used to style specific columns of a table.

HTML Table Colgroup

If you want to style the two first columns of a table, use the <colgroup> and <col> elements.

MON	TUE	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28

The <colgroup> element should be used as a container for the column specifications.

Each group are specified with a <col> element.

The span attribute specifies how many columns that gets the style.

The style attribute specifies the style to give the columns.

Note: There is a very limited selection of legal CSS properties for colgroups.

Example

<table>
  <colgroup>
    <col span="2" style="background-color: #D6EEEE">
  </colgroup>
  <tr>
    <th>MON</th>
    <th>TUE</th>
    <th>WED</th>
    <th>THU</th>
...

Test it Yourself

Note: The <colgroup> tag must be a child of a <table> element and should be placed before any other table elements, like <thead>, <tr>, <td> etc., but after the <caption> element, if present.

Legal CSS Properties

There are only a very limited selection of CSS properties that are allowed to be used in the colgroup:

width property
visibility property
background properties
border properties

All other CSS properties will have no effect on your tables.

Multiple Col Elements

If you want to style more columns with different styles, use more <col> elements inside the <colgroup>:

Example

<table>
  <colgroup>
    <col span="2" style="background-color: #D6EEEE">
    <col span="3" style="background-color: pink">
  </colgroup>
  <tr>
    <th>MON</th>
    <th>TUE</th>
    <th>WED</th>
    <th>THU</th>
...

Test it Yourself

Empty Colgroups

If you want to style columns in the middle of a table, insert a "empty" <col> element (with no styles) for the columns before:

Example

<table>
  <colgroup>
    <col span="3">
    <col span="2" style="background-color: pink">
  </colgroup>
  <tr>
    <th>MON</th>
    <th>TUE</th>
    <th>WED</th>
    <th>THU</th>
...

Test it Yourself

Hide Columns

You can hide columns with the visibility: collapse property:

Example

<table>
  <colgroup>
    <col span="2">
    <col span="3" style="visibility: collapse">
  </colgroup>
  <tr>
    <th>MON</th>
    <th>TUE</th>
    <th>WED</th>
    <th>THU</th>
...

Test it Yourself

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HTML Table Colgroup