Giving a border to an HTML table row, <tr>

Question

Is it possible to border a table row, <tr> in one go instead of giving a border to individual cells, <td> like,

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" style="border: 1px;" rules="none">
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <th style="width: 96px;">Column 1</th>
            <th style="width: 96px;">Column 2</th>
            <th style="width: 96px;">Column 3</th>
        </tr>

        <tr>
            <td>&nbsp;</td>
            <td>&nbsp;</td>
            <td>&nbsp;</td>
        </tr>

        <tr>
            <td style="border-left: thin solid; border-top: thin solid; border-bottom: thin solid;">&nbsp;</td>
            <td style="border-top: thin solid; border-bottom: thin solid;">&nbsp;</td>
            <td style="border-top: thin solid; border-bottom: thin solid; border-right: thin solid;">&nbsp;</td>
        </tr>

        <tr>
            <td>&nbsp;</td>
            <td>&nbsp;</td>
            <td>&nbsp;</td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

This gives a border around the given <tr> but it requires a border around individual cells.

Can we give a border to <tr> only in one go?

→ jsFiddle

Solution 1

You can set border properties on a tr element, but according to the CSS 2.1 specification, such properties have no effect in the separated borders model, which tends to be the default in browsers. Ref.: 17.6.1 The separated borders model. (The initial value of border-collapse is separate according to CSS 2.1, and some browsers also set it as default value for table. The net effect anyway is that you get separated border on almost all browsers unless you explicitly specifi collapse.)

Thus, you need to use collapsing borders. Example:

<style>
table { border-collapse: collapse; }
tr:nth-child(3) { border: solid thin; }
</style>

Solution 2

Absolutely! Just use

<tr style="outline: thin solid">

on which ever row you like. Here's a fiddle.

Of course, as people have mentioned, you can do this via an id, or class, or some other means if you wish.

Solution 3

Yes. I updated my answer DEMO

table td {
    border-top: thin solid; 
    border-bottom: thin solid;
}

table td:first-child {
     border-left: thin solid;
}

table td:last-child {
     border-right: thin solid;
}

If you want to style only one <tr> you can do it with a class: Second DEMO

Solution 4

You can use the box-shadow property on a tr element as a subtitute for a border. As a plus, any border-radius property on the same element will also apply to the box shadow.

box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 1px rgb(0, 0, 0);

Solution 5

Make use of CSS classes:

tr.border{
    outline: thin solid;
}

and use it like:

<tr class="border">...</tr>

View more solutions

Comments

[Itay Gal]

<tr> should be a container not an element so formatting his child through his style is not correct in terms of semantics, even if it works.

[Tiny]

Google Chrome and Internet Explorer show a border around a <tr> but Mozilla Fire Fox doesn't display a border.

[takendarkk]

Try using outline instead of border. That should fix compatibility. I only have Chrome atm, so I can't test it.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Outline is not border.

[takendarkk]

@JukkaK.Korpela What are the main differences? If you use outline and no border, are there any visual differences? Also, if this is incorrect can you provide a correct solution?

[Tiny]

It looks like Internet Explorer dislikes last-child (It does not seem to support).

[Itay Gal]

@Tiny which IE version do you wish to support? Version 9+ supports first-child and last-child.

[Robert Siemer]

You are not styling <tr>, you’re styling <td>.

[Abhishek]

Chrome 37 does not put a border on tr jsbin.com/mopuci/1/edit?html,css,output

[tsh]

@takendarkk outline do not work with border-radius

[me_]

@Robert Siemer While it is true that this puts a border around rows, it also requires "border-collapse: collapse". Columns cannot be spaced using the cellpadding property in this manner. The outline property used in csmckelvey's answer below provides for greater control over the look of the table and achieves exactly the same goal. This should not be the accepted answer as it unnecessarily limits functionality to achieve the goal.

[me_]

@tsh border-collapse: collapse doesn't work with cellpadding

[franiis]

Could you add comment to your answer and explain what did you changed?

[Jacob Stamm]

This offers much more control over styling than outline does. Should be a higher answer.

[matt forsythe]

A good suggestion, but in my case, I want to be able to set border-top and border-bottom. outline does not seem to provide this functionality.

[Ricardo F.]

Very good workaround