Html – How to make the HTML table be 100% wide AND have all of its cells only be as wide as their contents

csshtmlhtml-table

I have this grid:

enter image description here

If I change the tables width from 100% to auto, table collapses horizontally.

enter image description here

Which is not desirable. How can I make the table columns (td elements) shrink automatically to fit their content, while at the same time, the table, and tr elements fill the entire space of their parent?

Best Answer

How can I make the table columns (td elements) shrink automatically to fit their content, while at the same time, the table, and tr elements fill the entire space of their parent?

<table> and <tr> elements are as wide as the <td> elements inside of them. You can’t have every <td> be as small as its contents and have the table as a whole be as wide as the space available, because the table can only be as wide as the cells inside it.

(i.e. unlike most HTML elements, <table> elements can’t be sized independently from their contents.)

You can set one cell to be as wide as possible though, by giving it a width of 100%:

<table style="width: 100%; background: grey; color: white;">
     <tr>
         <td style="background: red;">Content</td>
         <td style="background: green;">Content</td>
         <td style="background: blue; width: 100%;">Content</td>
     </tr>
</table>

See http://jsfiddle.net/9bp9g/

2015 update: the flexbox approach

There are two other answers briefly mentioning flexbox; however, that was more than two years ago, and they don't provide any examples. The specification for flexbox has definitely settled now.

Note: Though CSS Flexible Boxes Layout specification is at the Candidate Recommendation stage, not all browsers have implemented it. WebKit implementation must be prefixed with -webkit-; Internet Explorer implements an old version of the spec, prefixed with -ms-; Opera 12.10 implements the latest version of the spec, unprefixed. See the compatibility table on each property for an up-to-date compatibility status.

(taken from https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/CSS/Flexible_boxes)

All major browsers and IE11+ support Flexbox. For IE 10 or older, you can use the FlexieJS shim.

To check current support you can also see here: http://caniuse.com/#feat=flexbox

Working example

With flexbox you can easily switch between any of your rows or columns either having fixed dimensions, content-sized dimensions or remaining-space dimensions. In my example I have set the header to snap to its content (as per the OPs question), I've added a footer to show how to add a fixed-height region and then set the content area to fill up the remaining space.

html,
body {
  height: 100%;
  margin: 0;
}

.box {
  display: flex;
  flex-flow: column;
  height: 100%;
}

.box .row {
  border: 1px dotted grey;
}

.box .row.header {
  flex: 0 1 auto;
  /* The above is shorthand for:
  flex-grow: 0,
  flex-shrink: 1,
  flex-basis: auto
  */
}

.box .row.content {
  flex: 1 1 auto;
}

.box .row.footer {
  flex: 0 1 40px;
}

<!-- Obviously, you could use HTML5 tags like `header`, `footer` and `section` -->

<div class="box">
  <div class="row header">
    <p><b>header</b>
      <br />
      <br />(sized to content)</p>
  </div>
  <div class="row content">
    <p>
      <b>content</b>
      (fills remaining space)
    </p>
  </div>
  <div class="row footer">
    <p><b>footer</b> (fixed height)</p>
  </div>
</div>

In the CSS above, the flex property shorthands the flex-grow, flex-shrink, and flex-basis properties to establish the flexibility of the flex items. Mozilla has a good introduction to the flexible boxes model.

Html – How to make a div not larger than its contents

The solution is to set your div to display: inline-block.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Html – Make a div fill the height of the remaining screen space

2015 update: the flexbox approach

Working example

Html – How to make a div not larger than its contents

Related Topic