<thead>: The Table Head element

The <thead> HTML element defines a set of rows defining the head of the columns of the table.

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Attributes

This element includes the global attributes.

Deprecated attributes

align

This enumerated attribute specifies how horizontal alignment of each cell content will be handled. Possible values are:

  • left, aligning the content to the left of the cell
  • center, centering the content in the cell
  • right, aligning the content to the right of the cell
  • justify, inserting spaces into the textual content so that the content is justified in the cell
  • char, aligning the textual content on a special character with a minimal offset, defined by the char and charoff attributes.

If this attribute is not set, the left value is assumed.

Warning: Do not use this attribute as it is obsolete (not supported) in the latest standard.

  • To align values, use the CSS text-align property instead.
bgcolor

This attribute defines the background color of each column cell. It accepts a 6-digit hexadecimal color or a named color. Alpha transparency is not supported.

Note: Do not use this attribute, as it is non-standard. The thead element should be styled using the CSS background-color property, which can be applied to any element, including the thead, <tr>, <td> and <th> elements.

char

This attribute is used to set the character to align the cells in a column on. Typical values for this include a period (.) when attempting to align numbers or monetary values. If align is not set to char, this attribute is ignored.

Note: Do not use this attribute as it is obsolete (and not supported) in the latest standard.

charoff

This attribute is used to indicate the number of characters to offset the column data from the alignment characters specified by the char attribute.

Note: Do not use this attribute as it is obsolete (and not supported) in the latest standard.

valign

This attribute specifies the vertical alignment of the text within each row of cells of the table header. Possible values for this attribute are:

  • baseline, which will put the text as close to the bottom of the cell as it is possible, but align it on the baseline of the characters instead of the bottom of them. If characters are all of the size, this has the same effect as bottom.
  • bottom, which will put the text as close to the bottom of the cell as it is possible;
  • middle, which will center the text in the cell;
  • top, which will put the text as close to the top of the cell as it is possible.

Note: Do not use this attribute as it is obsolete (and not supported) in the latest standard: instead set the CSS vertical-align property on it.

Examples

See <table> for examples on <thead>.

Technical summary

Content categories None.
Permitted content Zero or more <tr> elements.
Tag omission The start tag is mandatory. The end tag may be omitted if the <thead> element is immediately followed by a <tbody> or <tfoot> element.
Permitted parents A <table> element. The <thead> must appear after any <caption> or <colgroup> element, even implicitly defined, but before any <tbody>, <tfoot> and <tr> element.
Implicit ARIA role rowgroup
Permitted ARIA roles Any
DOM interface HTMLTableSectionElement

Specifications

Specification
HTML Standard
# the-thead-element

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also