How to Prevent Column Width Expansion in HTML Tables?

Preventing Column Width Expansion in Tables

Many developers often encounter a challenge when working with tables: ensuring that the width of a column remains constant, regardless of the length of text within its cells. In this article, we'll address this issue and provide a solution to set column widths while disabling any expansion.

Understanding the Problem

By default, when text exceeds the specified width of a table cell, the containing column expands to accommodate the overflow. This behavior contradicts the desired consistency in column widths.

Solution: Column Width Stability

There are two CSS properties crucial for fixing this problem:

• table-layout: fixed: This property sets the table layout mode to fixed, ensuring that column widths remain consistent regardless of cell content.
• width: This property sets the explicit width of the column.

Implementing these properties, along with proper CSS styling for borders and table width, achieves the intended behavior:

table {
  border: 1px solid black;
  table-layout: fixed;
  width: 200px;
}

th,
td {
  border: 1px solid black;
  width: 100px;
  overflow: hidden;
}

Example:

<table>
  <tr>
    <th>header 1</th>
    <th>header 234567895678657</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>data asdfasdfasdfasdfasdf</td>
    <td>data 2</td>
  </tr>
</table>

This code maintains a column width of 100px for both columns, even when the text in the second header cell is significantly longer. The overflow: hidden property conceals any excess text that would otherwise protrude beyond the cell boundary.

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