HTML <col> tag

When writing in HTML (hypertext markup language), the <col> tag designates certain properties for each column contained in a <colgroup> element. It is useful when you want to apply formatting to an entire column, rather than each cell individually. The following sections contain information about the <col> tag, including an example of it in use, and related attributes and browser compatibility.

Example of <col> code

<table class="mtable2 tab">
  <colgroup>
    <col span="1" style="background-color:#c1c1c3">
    <col style="background-color:white">
  </colgroup>
  <tr>
    <th>Month</th>
    <th>Savings</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>March</td>
    <td>$200</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>April</td>
    <td>$300</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>May</td>
    <td>$250</td>
  </tr>
</table>

Example result

As the HTML code indicates, the entire table has a background color of white and the first column is "painted" grey. The table itself has one of our CSS (cascading style sheets) classes applied to it to improve its appearance.

Deprecated attributes

All HTML tags support standard attributes that define the settings of an HTML element. In addition to the standard settings, the <col> tag had the following unique attributes that are now deprecated.

Compatibility

Browser, Cell, Class, Compatibility, Format, Row, Table, Web design terms