Scrollable tbody doesn't occupy all available width

Question

I have a table that contains a lot of rows (1000+). Structure is really simple, here is a simplified example with only one row.

<table>
    <thead>
        <tr>
            <th>column 1</th>
            <th>column 2</th>
            <th>column 3</th>
        </tr>
    </thead>

    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

I need column names to be fixed, so I made tbody scrollable. I added these CSS rules

tbody {
    display: block;
    overflow-y: scroll;
    overflow-x: none;
    max-height: 150px;
}

Here is a full JSfiddle example

There are 2 problems.

<tbody> doesn't occupy all the width. I tried with width: 100%; but it doesn't work. display: block; seems to prevent normal width behaviour but I need it for the scroll. How can I do it occupy all the available space? It's fine even if only 1 column get all the remaining space
<thead> and <tbody> column width is different. At the moment I use a jQuery piece of code to set headers width like other rows, this is fine but I wonder if a better solution is possible.

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 27 '19 at 10:51

4

add this to css

thead,
tbody tr {
    display: table;
    width: 100%;
    table-layout: fixed; /* even columns width , fix width of table too*/

}

answered Feb 27 '19 at 10:51

Mayur Nandane

309
2
8

U saved my day bro! – Harshit Agarwal Aug 14 '19 at 08:31
Yeah, this worked, but any idea if the Scroll bar can be made outside? A small scroll is spoiling the columns layout , I had to remove the borders. – Murtuza Husain Aug 20 '19 at 10:33

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:54

This answer can help: it gives all the possible solutions, both pure css and with jquery.

This a working solution in pure css where also <tbody> and <thead> have the same width:

table {
    border-collapse: collapse;
    border-spacing: 0;
   
    
    text-align: left;
    
     display: flex;
    flex-flow: column;
    height: 100%;
    width: 100%;
}

thead {
    border: 1px solid grey;
        /* head takes the height it requires, 
    and it's not scaled when table is resized */
    flex: 0 0 auto;
    width: 100%;
}

tbody {
   
  
    max-height: 150px;
    width: 100%;
        /* body takes all the remaining available space */
    flex: 1 1 auto;
    display: block;
    overflow-y: scroll;
}






table tbody tr {
    width: 100%;
}
table thead,
table tbody tr {
    display: table;
    table-layout: fixed;
}
/* decorations */
.table-container {
    border: 1px solid black;
    padding: 0.3em;
}
table {
    border: 1px solid lightgrey;
}
table td, table th {
    padding: 0.3em;
    border: 1px solid lightgrey;
}
table th {
    border: 1px solid grey;
}

td{
    word-wrap:break-word
}

<table>
    <thead>
        <tr>
            <th>column 1</th>
            <th>column 2</th>
            <th>column 3</th>
        </tr>
    </thead>

    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1akeuntveiuyrtiueyctiuyetiuyenaiuc</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value sifcaiuerycnpiuaerypintcer2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

EDIT - Alternative solution: If you remove display:block; from <tbody>, your code works.

tbody {

overflow-y: scroll;
overflow-x: none;
max-height: 150px;
border: 1px solid grey;
width: 100%
}

it works but make columns `width` fixed (ok it's a percentage but it's not based on contents) — Naigel, Feb 24 '16 at 10:57
@Naigel I have modified my answer to make the cells contain the whole text in multiple lines — silviagreen, Feb 24 '16 at 11:23
@Naigel I have also added a correction for your code to work — silviagreen, Feb 24 '16 at 11:36
Your first soultion was better, I try to make width somehow adaptable (a mix of `width` in percentage and a `min-width` in px) — Naigel, Feb 24 '16 at 12:58
Great answer, but please add some more inline documentation to your css ;) — SumNeuron, May 06 '17 at 14:11
If you removed `display: block;` the table will not be scrollable. — Hossam Mourad, Nov 14 '17 at 10:31

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 24 '16 at 10:42

Define to this css

tbody > tr , thead > tr{display:table;width:100%;}
tbody, thead{display: block;}

table {
    border-collapse: collapse;
    border-spacing: 0;
    border: 1px solid grey;
    width: 100%;
    text-align: left;
}

thead {
    border: 1px solid grey;
}
tbody > tr , thead > tr{display:table;width:100%;}
tbody, thead{display: block;}
tbody {
    
    overflow-y: scroll;
    overflow-x: none;
    max-height: 150px;
    border: 1px solid grey;
    width: 100%
}

<table>
    <thead>
        <tr>
            <th>column 1</th>
            <th>column 2</th>
            <th>column 3</th>
        </tr>
    </thead>

    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>value 1</td>
            <td>value 2</td>
            <td>value 3</td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

the problem here is that columns are not alligned when text length is different, but I can try to add some `width` percentage combined with `min-width` absolute value — Naigel, Feb 24 '16 at 10:56

Scrollable tbody doesn't occupy all available width

3 Answers3