[html] How to set width of mat-table column in angular?

Here in my mat-table have 6 column when any column has not more words then it looks like Image-1, but when any column has more words then UI looks like Image-2, so how to set UI like Image-1 when any column has more words in angular 6 ?

Image-1

Image-2

user.component.html

<div class="mat-elevation-z8">      
 <table mat-table [dataSource]="dataSource">
  <ng-container matColumnDef="userimage">
    <th mat-header-cell *matHeaderCellDef> # </th>
    <td mat-cell *matCellDef="let element"> 
      <img src="{{commonUrlObj.commonUrl}}/images/{{element.userimage}}" style="height: 40px;width: 40px;"/>
    </td>
  </ng-container>

  <ng-container matColumnDef="username">
    <th mat-header-cell *matHeaderCellDef> Full Name </th>
    <td mat-cell *matCellDef="let element"> {{element.username}} ( {{element.usertype}} )</td>
  </ng-container>

  <ng-container matColumnDef="emailid">
    <th mat-header-cell *matHeaderCellDef> EmailId </th>
    <td mat-cell *matCellDef="let element"> {{element.emailid}} </td>
   </ng-container>

  <ng-container matColumnDef="contactno">
    <th mat-header-cell *matHeaderCellDef> Contact No. </th>
    <td mat-cell *matCellDef="let element"> {{element.contactno}} </td>
  </ng-container>

  <ng-container matColumnDef="enabled">
    <th mat-header-cell *matHeaderCellDef> Enabled </th>
    <td mat-cell *matCellDef="let element" style="color: blue">
      <ng-container *ngIf="element.enabled == 'true'; else otherss">Enabled</ng-container>
        <ng-template #otherss>Disabled</ng-template>
    </td>
  </ng-container>

  <ng-container matColumnDef="action">
    <th mat-header-cell *matHeaderCellDef> Action </th>
      <td mat-cell *matCellDef="let element" fxLayoutGap="5px">
        <button mat-mini-fab color="primary" routerLink="/base/editUserDetails/{{element.userid}}"><mat-icon>edit</mat-icon></button>
        <button mat-mini-fab color="primary" routerLink="/base/viewUserDetails/{{element.userid}}"><mat-icon>pageview</mat-icon></button>
      </td>
  </ng-container>

  <tr mat-header-row *matHeaderRowDef="displayedColumns"></tr>
  <tr mat-row *matRowDef="let row; columns: displayedColumns;"></tr>
</table>
<mat-paginator [pageSizeOptions]="[5, 10, 20, 50 ,100]" showFirstLastButtons></mat-paginator>

You can easily do this one. In each column you will get a class with the field name prefixed with mat-column, so the class will be like mat-column-yourFieldName. So for that you can set the style like following

.mat-column-yourFieldName {
    flex: none;
    width: 100px;
}

So we can give fixed width for column as per our requirement.

Hope this helps for someone.

If you're using scss for your styles you can use a mixin to help generate the code. Your styles will quickly get out of hand if you put all the properties every time.

This is a very simple example - really nothing more than a proof of concept, you can extend this with multiple properties and rules as needed.

@mixin mat-table-columns($columns)
{
    .mat-column-
    {
        @each $colName, $props in $columns {

            $width: map-get($props, 'width');

            &#{$colName} 
            {
                flex: $width;
                min-width: $width;

                @if map-has-key($props, 'color') 
                {
                    color: map-get($props, 'color');
                }
            }  
        }
    }
}

Then in your component where your table is defined you just do this:

@include mat-table-columns((

    orderid: (width: 6rem, color: gray),
    date: (width: 9rem),
    items: (width: 20rem)

));

This generates something like this:

.mat-column-orderid[_ngcontent-c15] {
  flex: 6rem;
  min-width: 6rem;
  color: gray; }

.mat-column-date[_ngcontent-c15] {
  flex: 9rem;
  min-width: 9rem; }

In this version width becomes flex: value; min-width: value.

For your specific example you could add wrap: true or something like that as a new parameter.

As i have implemented, and it is working fine. you just need to add column width using matColumnDef="description"

for example :

<mat-table #table [dataSource]="dataSource" matSortDisableClear>
    <ng-container matColumnDef="productId">
        <mat-header-cell *matHeaderCellDef>product ID</mat-header-cell>
        <mat-cell *matCellDef="let product">{{product.id}}</mat-cell>
    </ng-container>
    <ng-container matColumnDef="productName">
        <mat-header-cell *matHeaderCellDef>Name</mat-header-cell>
        <mat-cell *matCellDef="let product">{{product.name}}</mat-cell>
    </ng-container>
    <ng-container matColumnDef="actions">
        <mat-header-cell *matHeaderCellDef>Actions</mat-header-cell>
        <mat-cell *matCellDef="let product">
            <button (click)="view(product)">
                <mat-icon>visibility</mat-icon>
            </button>
        </mat-cell>
    </ng-container>
    <mat-header-row *matHeaderRowDef="displayedColumns"></mat-header-row>
    <mat-row *matRowDef="let row; columns: displayedColumns"></mat-row>
</mat-table>

here matColumnDef is productId, productName and action

now we apply width by matColumnDef

styling

.mat-column-productId {
    flex: 0 0 10%;
}
.mat-column-productName {
    flex: 0 0 50%;
}

and remaining width is equally allocated to other columns

Just need to update the width of the th tag.

th {
  width: 100px;
}

we can add attribute width directly to th

eg:

<ng-container matColumnDef="position" >
    <th mat-header-cell *matHeaderCellDef width ="20%"> No. </th>
    <td mat-cell *matCellDef="let element"> {{element.position}} </td>
  </ng-container>

Just add style="width:5% !important;" to th and td

  <ng-container matColumnDef="username">
    <th style="width:5% !important;" mat-header-cell *matHeaderCellDef> Full Name </th>
    <td style="width:5% !important;" mat-cell *matCellDef="let element"> {{element.username}} ( {{element.usertype}} )</td>
  </ng-container>

Here's an alternative way of tackling the problem:

Instead of trying to "fix it in post" why don't you truncate the description before the table needs to try and fit it into its columns? I did it like this:

<ng-container matColumnDef="description">
   <th mat-header-cell *matHeaderCellDef> {{ 'Parts.description' | translate }} </th>
            <td mat-cell *matCellDef="let element">
                {{(element.description.length > 80) ? ((element.description).slice(0, 80) + '...') : element.description}}
   </td>
</ng-container>

So I first check if the array is bigger than a certain length, if Yes then truncate and add '...' otherwise pass the value as is. This enables us to still benefit from the auto-spacing the table does :)

You can do it by using below CSS:

table {
  width: 100%;
  table-layout: fixed;
}

th, td {
  overflow: hidden;
  width: 200px;
  text-overflow: ellipsis;
  white-space: nowrap;
}

Here is a StackBlitz Example with Sample Data