HTML - <thead>

The HTML Table Head Element (<thead>) defines a set of rows defining the head of the columns of the table.

Example

See <table> for examples on <thead>.

Description  

The HTML Table Head Element (<thead>) defines a set of rows defining the head of the columns of the table.

Content categories None.
Permitted content Zero or more <tr> elements.
Tag omission The start tag is mandatory. The end tag may be omitted if the <thead> element is immediately followed by a <tbody> or <tfoot> element.
Permitted parent elements A <table> element. The <thead> must appear after any <caption> or <colgroup> element, even implicitly defined, but before any <tbody>, <tfoot> and <tr> element.
Normative document HTML5, section 4.9.6 (HTML4.01, section 11.2.3)

Attributes

Includes the Global Attributes.

NameVersionDescription
align HTML 4 This enumerated attribute specifies how horizontal alignment of each cell content will be handled. Possible values are:
  • left, aligning the content to the left of the cell
  • center, centering the content in the cell
  • right, aligning the content to the right of the cell
  • justify, inserting spaces into the textual content so that the content is justified in the cell
  • char, aligning the textual content on a special character with a minimal offset, defined by the char and charoff attributes Unimplemented (see bug 2212).

If this attribute is not set,  the left value is assumed.

Note: Do not use this attribute as it is obsolete (not supported) in the latest standard.
  • To achieve the same effect as the left, center, right or justify values, use the CSS text-align property on it.
  • To achieve the same effect as the char value, in CSS3, you can use the value of the char as the value of the text-align property Unimplemented.
bgcolor This attribute defines the background color of each cell of the column. It is one of the 6-digit hexadecimal code as defined in sRGB, prefixed by a '#'. One of the sixteen predefined color strings may be used:
  black = "#000000"   green = "#008000"
  silver = "#C0C0C0"   lime = "#00FF00"
  gray = "#808080"   olive = "#808000"
  white = "#FFFFFF"   yellow = "#FFFF00"
  maroon = "#800000"   navy = "#000080"
  red = "#FF0000"   blue = "#0000FF"
  purple = "#800080"   teal = "#008080"
  fuchsia = "#FF00FF"   aqua = "#00FFFF"
Usage note: Do not use this attribute, as it is non-standard and only implemented in some versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer: the <thead> element should be styled using CSS. To give a similar effect to the bgcolor attribute, use the CSS property background-color, on the relevant <td> or <th> elements.
char HTML 4 This attribute is used to set the character to align the cells in a column on. Typical values for this include a period (.) when attempting to align numbers or monetary values. If align is not set to char, this attribute is ignored.
Note: Do not use this attribute as it is obsolete (and not supported) in the latest standard. To achieve the same effect as the char, in CSS3, you can use the character set using the char attribute as the value of the text-align property Unimplemented.
charoff HTML 4 This attribute is used to indicate the number of characters to offset the column data from the alignment characters specified by the char attribute.
Note: Do not use this attribute as it is obsolete (and not supported) in the latest standard.
valign HTML 4 This attribute specifies the vertical alignment of the text within each row of cells of the table header. Possible values for this attribute are:
  • baseline, which will put the text as close to the bottom of the cell as it is possible, but align it on the baseline of the characters instead of the bottom of them. If characters are all of the size, this has the same effect as bottom.
  • bottom, which will put the text as close to the bottom of the cell as it is possible;
  • middle, which will center the text in the cell;
  • top, which will put the text as close to the top of the cell as it is possible.
Note: Do not use this attribute as it is obsolete (and not supported) in the latest standard: instead set the CSS vertical-align property on it.

Browser Compatibility  

Feature Chrome Firefox (Gecko) Internet Explorer Opera Safari
Basic support 1.0 1.0 (1.7 or earlier) (Yes) (Yes) (Yes)
align/valign attribute 1.0 Not supported [1] (Yes) (Yes) (Yes)
char/charoff attribute 1.0 Not supported [2] (Yes) (Yes) (Yes)
bgcolor attribute Not supported Not supported (Yes) Not supported Not supported
Feature Android Firefox Mobile (Gecko) IE Mobile Opera Mobile Safari Mobile
Basic support (Yes) 1.0 (1.0) (Yes) (Yes) (Yes)
align/valign attribute ? Not supported [1] ? ? ?
char/charoff attribute ? Not supported [2] ? ? ?
bgcolor attribute Not supported Not supported (Yes) Not supported Not supported

[1] See bug 915

[2] See bug 2212

See Also  

DOM interface

This element implements the HTMLTableSectionElement interface.

License

© 2016 Mozilla Contributors
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-us/docs/web/html/element/thead