Centering Text in Table Columns with Colgroups

A common challenge in HTML tables is aligning text centrally in specific columns. Despite using

The crux of the issue lies in CSS limitations. Only a select few CSS properties, including background-color, apply to columns. Unfortunately, text-align is not among them.

To overcome this hurdle, an alternative approach is required. In the given example, adding the following CSS rules will center the text in all table cells, except for the first column:

#myTable tbody td { text-align: center }
#myTable tbody td:first-child { text-align: left }

This solution leverages the fact that text-align does apply to table cells. Note that this method is not compatible with IE6, but curiously, in IE6, text-align actually applies (albeit incorrectly) to columns.

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