[html] Set the table column width constant regardless of the amount of text in its cells?

In my table I set the width of the first cell in a column to be 100px.
However, when the text in one of the cell in this column is too long, the width of the column becomes more than 100px. How could I disable this expansion?

Setting this:

style="min-width:100px;" 

Worked for me.

I used this

.app_downloads_table tr td:first-child {
    width: 75%;
}

.app_downloads_table tr td:last-child {
    text-align: center;
}

It also helps, to put in the last "filler cell", with width:auto. This will occupy remaining space, and will leave all other dimensions as specified.

What I do is:

1. Set the td width:

   <td width="200" height="50"><!--blaBlaBla Contents here--></td>
   

2. Set the td width with CSS:

   <td style="width:200px; height:50px;">
   

3. Set the width again as max and min with CSS:

   <td style="max-width:200px; min-width:200px; max-height:50px; min-height:50px; width:200px; height:50px;">
   

It sounds little bit repetitive but it gives me the desired result. To achieve this with much ease, you may need put the CSS values in a class in your style-sheet:

.td_size {    
  width:200px; 
  height:50px;
  max-width:200px;
  min-width:200px; 
  max-height:50px; 
  min-height:50px;
  **overflow:hidden;** /*(Optional)This might be useful for some overflow contents*/   
}

then:

<td class="td_size">

Place the class attribute to any <td> you want.

If you don't want a fixed layout, specify a class for the column to be size appropriately.

CSS:

.special_column { width: 120px; }

HTML:

<td class="special_column">...</td>

Make the accepted answer respond for small screens when smaller than the fixed width.

HTML:

<table>
  <tr>
    <th>header 1</th>
    <th>header 234567895678657</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>data asdfasdfasdfasdfasdf</td>
    <td>data 2</td>
  </tr>
</table>

CSS

table{
    border: 1px solid black;
    table-layout: fixed;
    max-width: 600px;
    width: 100%;
}

th, td {
    border: 1px solid black;
    overflow: hidden;
    max-width: 300px;
    width: 100%;
}

JS Fiddle

https://jsfiddle.net/w9s3ebzt/

KAsun has the right idea. Here is the correct code...

<style type="text/css">
  th.first-col > div, 
  td.first-col > div {
    overflow:hidden;
    white-space:nowrap;
    width:100px
  }
</style>

<table>
  <thead><tr><th class="first-col"><div>really long header</div></th></tr></thead>
  <tbody><tr><td class="first-col"><div>really long text</div></td></tr></tbody>
</table>

You don't need to set "fixed" - all you need is setting overflow:hidden since the column width is set.

See: http://www.html5-tutorials.org/tables/changing-column-width/

After the table tag, use the col element. you don't need a closing tag.

For example, if you had three columns:

<table>
  <colgroup>
    <col style="width:40%">
    <col style="width:30%">
    <col style="width:30%">
  </colgroup>  
  <tbody>
    ...
  </tbody>
</table>

Just add <div> tag inside <td> or <th> define width inside <div>. This will help you. Nothing else works.

eg.

<td><div style="width: 50px" >...............</div></td>

If you need one ore more fixed-width columns while other columns should resize, try setting both min-width and max-width to the same value.

You need to write this inside the corresponding CSS

table-layout:fixed;

As per my answer here, it is also possible to use a table head (which can be empty) and apply relative widths for each table head cell. The widths of all cells in the table body will conform to the width of their column head. Example:

HTML

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th width="5%"></th>
      <th width="70%"></th>
      <th width="15%"></th>
      <th width="10%"></th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>1</td>
      <td>Some text...</td>
      <td>May 2018</td>
      <td>Edit</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>2</td>
      <td>Another text...</td>
      <td>April 2018</td>
      <td>Edit</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

CSS

table {
  width: 600px;
  border-collapse: collapse;
}

td {
  border: 1px solid #999999;
}

View Result

Alternatively, use colgroup as suggested in Hyathin's answer.

I found KAsun's answer works better using vw instead of px like so:

<td><div style="width: 10vw" >...............</div></td>

This was the only styling I needed to adjust the column width

I use an ::after element in the cell where I want to set a minimal width regardless of the text present, like this:

.cell::after {
    content: "";
    width: 20px;
    display: block;
}

I don't have to set width on the table parent nor use table-layout.