Webmaster in a Nutshell, Second Edition

The <tr> Tag

Every row in a table is created with a <tr> tag. Within the <tr> tag are one or more cells containing either headers, each defined with the <th> tag, or data, each defined with the <td> tag.

Every row in a table has the same number of cells as the longest row; the browser automatically creates empty cells to pad rows with fewer defined cells.

Attributes to the <tr> tag control behavior for every cell it contains. There are two commonly used attributes for this tag:

• align is used differently in <tr> than it is in <table> (where it is now deprecated). In a table row, align lets you change the default horizontal alignment of the contents of the cells within the row. The attribute accepts values of left, right, center, or justify. HTML 4.0 also allows the value char, which aligns the contents to a specified character. However, this attribute is not yet supported in Navigator or Explorer. The default horizontal alignment for header cells (<th>) is centered; for data cells (<td>) it is left-justified.

• The valign attribute allows you to specify the vertical alignment of cell contents within a row. Four values are supported: top, bottom, baseline, and middle. The default vertical alignment is the same as specifying middle.

The browser treats each table cell as though it were its own browser window, fitting the contents to the size of the cell by breaking lines and flowing text. You can restrict line breaks with the nowrap attribute.

Background colors can be set for the cells ...