CSS for HTML Formatting: Achieving True Spacing Between Cells

In this article, we’ll explain how to use CSS to achieve true spacing between cells, rather than spacing between cells and arbitrary elements.

Read more: CSS Tutorial

Problem Description

When using HTML tables for layout, we often encounter a problem: by default, browsers add some spacing between cells and any elements, rather than adding spacing between cells themselves. This can cause layout issues, especially when trying to place multiple cells in a row or column.

Here’s a sample table that demonstrates the issue:

<table>
<tr>
<td>Cell 1</td>
<td>Cell 2</td>
<td>Cell 3</td>
</tr>
</table>

By default, this table has some spacing between cells, but we want no spacing.

Solution

To fix this, we can use the CSS border-collapse property. This property sets whether the table’s borders collapse to a single border, thus creating true spacing between cells.

First, we need to set the table’s border-collapse property to collapse in CSS:

table {
border-collapse: collapse;
}

Then, we can control the spacing within cells by setting the cell’s padding property, rather than by setting the spacing between the cell and other elements. For example, we can set the left and right padding of the cell to 10 pixels, and the top and bottom padding to 5 pixels:

td {
padding: 5px 10px;
}

Now, if we rerun the example table, we’ll see that there’s no spacing between cells, and the spacing within the cells is now controlled.

Example Description

To further illustrate our solution, we’ll create a table with multiple rows and columns and use CSS to control the spacing between cells.

First, we create a table with 5 rows and 5 columns:

<table> 
<tr> 
<td>Cell 1-1</td> 
<td>Cell 1-2</td> 
<td>Cell 1-3</td> 
<td>Cell 1-4</td> 
<td>Cell 1-5</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td>Cell 2-1</td> 
<td>Cell 2-2</td> 
<td>Cell 2-3</td> 
<td>Cell 2-4</td> 
<td>Cell 2-5</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td>Cell 3-1</td> 
<td>Cell 3-2</td> 
<td>Cell 3-3</td> 
<td>Cell 3-4</td> 
<td>Cell 3-5</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td>Cell 4-1</td> 
<td>Cell 4-2</td> 
<td>Cell 4-3</td> 
<td>Cell 4-4</td> 
<td>Cell 4-5</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td>Cell 5-1</td> 
<td>Cell 5-2</td> 
<td>Cell 5-3</td> 
<td>Cell 5-4</td> <td>Cell 5-5</td>
</tr>

</table>

Next, in CSS, we set the table’s border-collapse property to collapse and set the cell’s padding property:

table {
border-collapse: collapse;
}

td {
padding: 10px;
}

Now, if we rerun the code, we can see that each cell has 10 pixels of space between them.

Summary

By using the CSS border-collapse property, we can easily achieve true spacing between cells. Furthermore, by setting the cell’s padding property, we can control the spacing within the cell. These methods are very useful for creating tables with complex layouts, which can improve the effectiveness of our web design. I hope this article is helpful!