HTML <th> Tag
Topic: HTML5 Tags ReferencePrev|Next
Description
The <th> tag defines a header cell in a table. A Table cells may contain two types of information: header information and data.
- The
<th>(short for table head) tag defines a cell that contains header information. - The
<td>tag defines a cell that contains data.
This distinction enables web browser to render header and data cells distinctly, even in the absence of style sheets. For example, header cell text rendered with a bold font while text inside the data cell rendered as a regular text.
The following table summarizes the usages context and the version history of this tag.
| Parent: | <tr> |
|---|---|
| Content: | Block, inline, and text |
| Start/End Tag: | Start tag: required, End tag: optional |
| Version: | HTML 3.2, 4, 4.01, 5 |
Syntax
The basic syntax of the <th> tag is given with:
The example below shows the <th> tag in action.
<table>
<tr>
<th>No.</th>
<th>Name</th>
<th>Email</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>John Carter</td>
<td>[email protected]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>Peter Parker</td>
<td>[email protected]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>3</td>
<td>John Rambo</td>
<td>[email protected]</td>
</tr>
</table>Tag-Specific Attributes
The following table shows the attributes that are specific to the <th> tag.
| Attribute | Value | Description |
|---|---|---|
abbr |
text | Provide a short abbreviated description of the cell's content. |
align |
left |
Obsolete Specifies the alignment of cell contents. |
axis |
text | Obsolete Categorized a group of related headers. |
bgcolor |
color | Obsolete Sets the background color of a header cell. |
char |
character | Obsolete Sets the character to which cell contents should align. |
charoff |
number | Obsolete Defines the number of characters by which cell contents will be offset from the alignment characters specified by the char attribute. |
colspan |
number | Specifies the number of columns spanned by the current cell. |
headers |
header-id | Specifies one or more header cells a cell is related to. |
height |
length | Obsolete Sets the height of the header cell. |
nowrap |
nowrap |
Obsolete This boolean attribute tells the browser to disable automatic text wrapping for this cell. |
rowspan |
number | Specifies the number of rows spanned by the current cell. |
scope |
col |
Specifies the set of data cells for which the current header cell provides header information. |
sorted |
reversednumber |
Specifies the sort direction of a column. |
valign |
top |
Obsolete Specifies the vertical alignment of content within a header cell. |
width |
length | Obsolete Sets the width of a header cell. |
Global Attributes
Like all other HTML tags, the <th> tag supports the global attributes in HTML5.
Event Attributes
The <th> tag also supports the event attributes in HTML5.
Browser Compatibility
The <th> tag is supported in all major modern browsers.
 |
Basic Support—
|
Further Reading
See tutorial on: HTML Tables.
Other table-related tags: <table>, <thead>, <tfoot>, <tbody>, <caption>, <colgroup>, <col>, <tr>, <td>.
