<td>

<td> represents a data cell inside a tr. A cell may contain text, links, controls, or other flow content. Use th when a cell labels a row or column.

Data with headers

Here, the counts are data cells; the workshop names and column titles are header cells. The class changes numeric alignment without changing the cells’ meaning.

<table>
  <caption>
    Workshop registrations
  </caption>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th scope="col">Workshop</th>
      <th scope="col">Places booked</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <th scope="row">HTML basics</th>
      <td class="amount">12</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <th scope="row">CSS layout</th>
      <td class="amount">8</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
  <tfoot>
    <tr>
      <th scope="row">Total</th>
      <td class="amount">20</td>
    </tr>
  </tfoot>
</table>

/* Presentation: these styles make the table easier to read. */
table {
  border-collapse: collapse;
}
caption {
  text-align: left;
  font-weight: bold;
  margin-bottom: 0.5rem;
}
th,
td {
  border: 1px solid #94a3b8;
  padding: 0.5rem 0.75rem;
  text-align: left;
}
.amount {
  text-align: right;
  font-variant-numeric: tabular-nums;
}

Spanning and associations

colspan defaults to 1 and can span up to 1000 columns. rowspan defaults to 1; rowspan="0" extends through the remaining rows in the same row group. Spans must fit the table without overlapping cells.

For a simple table, clear row and column header structure is usually enough. For a complex table, a data cell’s headers attribute can list the space-separated IDs of its applicable <th> cells.

Try a change

Add a third column named “Location,” then add a data cell to every corresponding row. If the total row should not report a location, give its label colspan="2" only after reordering columns so that the label spans the intended positions. Do not use empty cells merely to create page spacing.

A <td> written outside a table row is invalid; HTML error recovery may move or drop it. Keep the whole table when copying the example.

Sources and browser support

MDN: td describes the syntax and links to the specification and compatibility data. Check individual values in that table when supporting older browsers.