Computed column width is different than css declared width for column. How does browser decide width?

Question

Let\'s say I have an html table with a css declared width of 750px. It has 5 columns and each column has a width of 50px, declared using css (all td\'s have a 50px width). O

Answer 1

When you set the width of table columns, it's just a recommended minimum width, that the browser tries to honor if possible. The actual width of the columns are calculated from the size of their content, dividing the leftover space evenly between the columns.

If any of the columns would end up narrower than the width that you specified, the browser would try to adjust it if there is free space in other columns, but in your case the columns are already over the minimum.

The actual algorithm to calculate the cell sizes differs from browser to browser, which means that the columns will end up slightly different depending on what browser you use.