Description

HTML element <col> is used to define column properties for each column within the <colgroup> element.

It is commonly used to apply styles to entire columns, instead of applying them individually to each row and cell.

The below table summarizes its usage.

Usage Details
Placement It is a child element of <colgroup> element, which is part of <table> element.
Contents It is an empty element, which doesn't contain any content.
Tags Only an opening tag is required.
Versions HTML 4, 4.01, and 5

Syntax

Here is the basic syntax of the <col> element.

  • The attribute span is optional, which can be used to column-span with a number to represent the number of columns it span.
<col span="num">

Examples

In the below example, the <col> element is used to refer to a movie and a painting.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>HTML Element - col</h1>
    <table>
        <colgroup>
            <col style="background-color: gray;">
            <col span="2" style="background-color: blue;">
        </colgroup>
        <tr>
            <th>Product</th>
            <th>Sales</th>
            <th>Stock</th>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Bread</th>
            <th>10000</th>
            <th>20000</th>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Butter</th>
            <th>3000</th>
            <th>8000</th>
        </tr>
    </table>
</body>
</html>

Attributes

The following table shows the list of supported and unsupported attributes for the <col> tag.

Attribute Type Details
Element-Specific Attributes The tag <col> has some element-specific attributes listed in the below table
Global Attributes Like all other HTML tags, the tag <col> supports the HTML Global Attributes.
Event Attributes The tag <col> also supports the HTML Event Attributes.

Here is a list of attributes that are specific to the <col> element.

Attribute Value Description
span length Specifies the number of consecutive columns the <col> element spans, with default value as 1.
A negative value is not allowed.

Browser Compatibility

The tag <col> is supported in all modern browsers.

  • Google Chrome 1+
  • Internet Explorer or Edge 4+
  • Firefox 1+
  • Apple Safari 1+
  • Opera 7+

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