How to right align text in table cell with

Question

I want the second column to be right-aligned and I don't want to apply styles to <td> element. From what I've read <col> is the way to go but it does not work for me:

<table>
    <col style="width: 20em" />
    <col align="right" style="text-align: right" />
    <col />
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td>123</td>
            <td>1</td>
            <td>2</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>12345678</td>
            <td>189</td>
            <td>2</td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

Tried <colgroup> with no luck as well. Any ideas?

p.s. Latest Chrome, FF5

James Montagne · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-13T18:36:27.717

5

Apparently only IE and Opera allow align.

Update, col should only have border, background, width & visibility. Has to do with css inheritance. http://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1070385285&count=1 (note, I only skimmed this article but it seemed like a decent read).

edited Sep 13 '11 at 18:36

answered Sep 13 '11 at 18:29

James Montagne

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score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Sep 11 '14 at 13:06

How exactly do people who set the standards operate? The obvious thing to do would be have the new way working before removing something from the standard. I am disappointed that this is not easy.

People have been right-aligning text in excel for 15 years yet the latest & greatest HTML 5 can't handle it.

This is more of a rant but the answer is get some people on the standards committee who know what they are doing. I'm sure to be slated for my answer but the fact that the question had to be asked on StackOverflow means it it too difficult to align text in HTML

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 13 '11 at 18:38

-1

You can apply a class to the col element, and then style however you want.

<col class="something" />

And

col.something
{
    text-align: right;
}

answered Sep 13 '11 at 18:38

ThatMatthew

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Ah. I'm using IE, so it worked for me. Curious why I got a down vote, but the other guy who suggested the `class` attribute did not. – ThatMatthew Sep 13 '11 at 19:22
Unfortunately, I'm stuck with IE here at work. Clearly, it is affecting my brain. – ThatMatthew Sep 13 '11 at 19:29

How to right align text in table cell with

3 Answers3