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In HTML table, what does td stand for? I mean literally, what is it an acronym for? Table division? Table data?

Dr. Gut
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ilija veselica
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    Kind of weird how everyone calls `td` a table "cell", but it's really a table datum (data, plural). – geoff Apr 21 '14 at 22:29
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    To clarify: "datum" is singular, "data" is plural. – ecoologic Jan 23 '19 at 06:38
  • While it may be true that "datum" is the singular form, there are few use cases for it. This is because "data" is treated like an uncountable noun, similar to "water" or "money". We ask "how much do you have?" and describe that amount with units of measurement. (ml, ¥, GiB) Or maybe we don't specify an exact amount. (A glass of water. A lot of money. A piece of data.) If somebody starts talking to me about a datum, I want to know how much a datum is. Is it a bit? A letter? A word? At that point we're back to measurement. Stick with "data", as a mass noun, and keep it simple. Off-topic. Sorry. – Mentalist Sep 10 '19 at 01:39

6 Answers6

151

It stands for Table Data

Macros
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58

table data cell

quickest answer: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/tables.html#edef-TD

(edit) here is the html5 edition: http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/tabular-data.html#the-td-element

Nathan
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    It's too bad the w3's documentation is such an eye sore. – Mark Fox Feb 14 '13 at 22:47
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    I found W3C to be esoteric at first, but once one adjusts to the format is (for me, at least) the quickest and most reliable reference. – Nathan Feb 15 '13 at 15:08
15

It means table data which is basically a cell or column.

Note also that tr stands for table row.

10

TD stand for Table Data.

Basant B. Pandey
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Yeah, table data. It doesn't make sense if you don't know about th, table header, since without it table cell would be a better one.

JHollanti
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-1

The fifth paragraph in this section of the HTML 4.01 specifications explicitly states:

Table cells may either contain "header" information (see the TH element) or "data" (see the TD element).

MattAllegro
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