Using "text-align: center" with CSS Colgroups: A Troubleshooting Guide

One common challenge encountered when formatting tables is aligning text horizontally. While the "text-align" property can be applied to table cells individually, it can sometimes seem to have no effect when applied to colgroups. Here's an explanation of why this occurs and a solution to overcome it.

The CSS Limitations of Colgroups

Despite their purpose of grouping and formatting columns, colgroups have a limited set of CSS properties they can apply. Unfortunately, "text-align" is not one of them. This means that even if you specify "text-align: center" on a colgroup, it won't affect the alignment of the text within its cells.

An Alternative Solution

To achieve centered text within a column in a table, you need to apply the "text-align: center" property directly to the table cells themselves. However, this raises another problem: the first column in the table is still not centered due to the presence of the left-aligned "th" element.

To resolve this, add the following CSS rules:

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

These rules center all table cells except the first column, which remains left-aligned, ensuring proper alignment throughout the table.

Invalid HTML

It's worth mentioning that your HTML code is invalid as highlighted by the absence of a "tr" element within the "thead" element. This needs to be corrected to ensure proper HTML structure and browser support.