Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference

Name

WIDTH — NN n/a IE 3 HTML 4

Synopsis

WIDTH=”multiLength"

Optional

Defines the maximum width for the column(s) covered by the COLGROUP element. In practice (in IE 4 Windows, anyway), the browser won’t render a column narrower than the widest contiguous stretch of characters not containing whitespace (e.g., the longest word). The precise measure of such a column width, of course, depends on the font characteristics of the content, as well. Internet Explorer 4 for the Mac mixes up column width assignments when the COLGROUP element is deployed.

Example

<COLGROUP WIDTH=100>

Value

Internet Explorer 4 accepts length values for the WIDTH in the form of pixel measures (without the “px” unit) or percentage of available horizontal space allocated to the entire table (WIDTH="25%").

An alternate variation of the proportional length value is described in the HTML 4.0 specification. For a COLGROUP element, you can specify WIDTH="*0" to instruct the browser to render all columns according to the minimum width necessary to display the content of the cells in the column. For a browser to make this calculation, it must load all table contents, thus eliminating the possibility of incremental rendering of a long table. For more information about proportional lengths, see the WIDTH attribute of the COL element.

Default

Determined by browser calculation.