How to word-wrap one column in a table, with table sized to browser window

Question

I have a HTML table with 3 'groups' of columns, left, middle and right.

+----------------------------------+
| L-1 | L-2 | M          | R1 | R2 |
+-----+-----+------------+----+----+
|  x  |  z  | aaaaaaa... |  1 |  2 |
|  y  |  w  | bbbbbbb... |  3 |  4 |
+-----+-----+------------+----+----+

I would like to confine the table to the width of the browser window, when there is a very long string in the middle ("M") column.

I tried to use CSS word-break on this column, as described in wordwrap a very long string.

Below is the HTML (exemplified). The CSS contains my thoughts regarding how this should (but apparently doesn't) work.

What am I doing wrong?

<html>
 <head>
  <style type='text/css'>
   table { /* nothing here - table is block, so should auto expand to as large as it can get without causing scrollbars? */ }
   .left { text-align:center; }
   .right { text-align:right; }
   .middle { text-align:left; width:100%; /* expand this column to as large as it can get within table? */}
   .wrap { word-wrap:break-word; width:100%; /* use up entire cell this div is contained in? */ }
  </style>
 </head>
 <body>
  <table>
   <tr>
    <th class=left>L-1</th>
    <th class=left>L-2</th>
    <th class=middle>M</th>
    <th class=right>R-1</th>
    <th class=right>R-2</th>
   </tr>
   <tr>
    <td class=left>argle</td>
    <td class=left>bargle</td>
    <td class=middle><div class=wrap>wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww</div></td>
    <td class=right>glyp</td>
    <td class=right>glof</td>
   </tr>
  </table>
 </body>
</html>

The result right now is that no word wrapping takes place, instead the table unwantedly shoots out to the far right and causes a scrollbar in the browser window.

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 10 '11 at 19:07

This seems to work perfectly:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
 <head>
  <style type='text/css'>
   th,td { vertical-align:top; padding:0 5px; }
   .left { text-align:center; }
   .right { text-align:right; }
   .middle { text-align:left; width:100%; }
  </style>
 </head>
 <body>
  <table>
   <tr>
    <th class=left>L-1</th>
    <th class=left>L-2</th>
    <th class=middle>M</th>
    <th class=right>R-1</th>
    <th class=right>R-2</th>
   </tr>
   <tr>
    <td class=left>argle</td>
    <td class=left>bargle</td>
    <td class=middle>w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;w&#x200b;</td>
    <td class=right>glyp</td>
    <td class=right>glof</td>
   </tr>
  </table>
 </body>
</html>

The trick above is to just insert a non-visible whitespace () every now and then.

I hate answering my own questions though, so I'll wait for someone to come up with something prettier before closing this.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 09 '11 at 11:54

Pertinent changes:

Added table { table-layout:fixed } to your CSS.
Added width="100%" to your table.
Removed the extraneous div, and added the .wrap class to your td with class .middle.
Added the width=100 attribute to your other columns.

Full HTML:

<html>
 <head>
  <style type='text/css'>
   table { table-layout:fixed; /* nothing here - table is block, so should auto expand to as large as it can get without causing scrollbars? */ }
   .left { text-align:center; }
   .right { text-align:right; }
   .middle { text-align:left; /* expand this column to as large as it can get within table? */}
   .wrap { word-wrap:break-word; /* use up entire cell this div is contained in? */ }
  </style>
 </head>
 <body>
  <table width="100%">
   <tr>
    <th class=left width=100>L-1</th>
    <th class=left width=100>L-2</th>
    <th class=middle>M</th>
    <th class=right width=100>R-1</th>
    <th class=right width=100>R-2</th>
   </tr>
   <tr>
    <td class=left>argle</td>
    <td class=left>bargle</td>
    <td class="middle wrap">wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww</td>
    <td class=right>glyp</td>
    <td class=right>glof</td>
   </tr>
  </table>
 </body>
</html>

Thanks for giving it a go! Does not quite work, the L and R columns contain user input, therefore I cannot fix them to 100 pixels. — rosenfield, Jan 10 '11 at 17:57

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 10 '11 at 18:47

This works at first glance:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
 <head>
  <style type='text/css'>
   td { vertical-align:top; }
   .left { text-align:center; }
   .right { text-align:right; }
   .middle,
   .middle iframe { width:100%; }
  </style>
 </head>
 <body>
  <table>
   <tr>
    <th class=left>L-1</th>
    <th class=left>L-2</th>
    <th class=middle>M</th>
    <th class=right>R-1</th>
    <th class=right>R-2</th>
   </tr>
   <tr>
    <td class=left>argle</td>
    <td class=left>bargle</td>
    <td class=middle><iframe style='border:0' src='data:text/html,%3Cbody style=%22margin:0;word-wrap:break-word%22%3Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww%3C/body%3E'></iframe></td>
    <td class=right>glyp</td>
    <td class=right>glof</td>
   </tr>
  </table>
 </body>
</html>

But breaks when you add another row, because the embedded iframe has static height.

How to word-wrap one column in a table, with table sized to browser window

3 Answers3