Description

The <colgroup> (short for column group) tag defines a group of one or more columns within a table. The <colgroup> element can only be used inside a <table> element, after <caption> element and before the <thead>, <th>, <tfoot>, <tbody>, and <tr> elements.

The following table summarizes the usages context and the version history of this tag.

Parent:<table>
Content:0 or more <col> elements
Start/ End Tag:Start tag: required, End tag: required
Version:HTML 4, 4.01, 5

Syntax

The basic syntax of the <colgroup> tag is given with:

HTML:<colgroup>; XHTML:<colgroup />

The example below shows the <colgroup> tag in action. 

<table>
    <colgroup>
        <col style="background-color:#adff2f;">
        <col span="2" style="background-color:#f0e68c;">
    </colgroup>
    <tr>
        <th>No.</th>
        <th>Name</th>
        <th>Email</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>1</td>
        <td>John Carter</td>
        <td>johncarter@mail.com</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>2</td>
        <td>Peter Parker</td>
        <td>peterparker@mail.com</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>3</td>
        <td>John Rambo</td>
        <td>johnrambo@mail.com</td>
    </tr>
</table>

Tag-Specific Attributes

The following table shows the attributes that are specific to the <colgroup> tag.

Global Attributes

Like all other HTML tags, the <colgroup> tag supports the global attributes in HTML5.

Event Attributes

The <colgroup> tag also supports the event attributes in HTML5.

Browser Compatibility

Element
<colgroup>YesYesYesYesYes