Name
<COL> — NN n/a IE 3 HTML 4
Synopsis
<COL>
End Tag: Forbidden
The COL
element provides shortcuts to assigning widths and other
characteristics (styles) to one or more subsets of columns within a
table or within a table’s column group. With this information
appearing early in the TABLE element, a browser
equipped to do so starts rendering the table before all source code
for the table has loaded (at which time it would otherwise perform
all of its geographical calculations).
You can use the COL element in combination with
the COLGROUP element or by itself. The structure
depends on how you need to assign widths and styles to individual
columns or contiguous columns. A COL element can
apply to a single column by omitting the REPEAT
(or SPAN in IE 4) attribute. By assigning an
integer value to the REPEAT attribute, you direct
the browser to ply the COL element’s width
or style settings to said number of contiguous columns. The
REPEAT element is similar to the
COLGROUP element’s
COLSPAN attribute. In concert with the
COLGROUP element, the COL
element allows you to create a kind of subset of related columns
within a COLGROUP set.
No matter how you address the column structure of your table, the
total number of columns defined in all COL and
COLGROUP elements should equal the physical number
of columns you intend for the table. If there should be more cells in
a row than columns defined in COL and
COLGROUP, the browser probably has to reflow the table and discard whatever incremental ...
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