I would like to change the background color of a specif column in a HTML table. Is it possible to use a property to do it. I found the way to do it with rows.

tr.even {
    background-color: white;
}

I would like to change the background color of a specif column in a HTML table. Is it possible to use a property to do it. I found the way to do it with rows.

tr.even {
    background-color: white;
}

• javascript
• jquery
• html
• css

• 1 Why not put an id on the columns so you can change it from css? – James Black Commented Feb 18, 2014 at 16:25
• Does this answer your question? Can I color table columns using CSS without coloring individual cells? – Spankied Commented Aug 8, 2021 at 3:34

6 Answers 6

Why don't you try using the colgroup tag and bining that with the span attribute. that way if you have 3 columns for instance, you can do

<colgroup>
<col span="2" id="something">
<col id="something2">
</colgroup>

then you can style that whole column with css.

ex:

#something2 {background-color:red;}

If you are looking to style the background of a column, and not a row, you can try something like this (below). You'll need to change the selectors to match your HTML.

td:first-child { background-color: #ccc; }

Below is a link to a fiddle, along with a way to add classes via JS. There are many ways, but since you are dealing with columns, remember that the CSS is being applied to the same td in each row you want to style.

JSFiddle

For modern browsers, you could use the nth-child() selector:

element:nth-child(1) {
    background-color:...
}

Or if you wanted to use jQuery, use eq():

$(element).eq(0).css("background-color","...");

_{Note: the CSS nth-child selector is 1-based while the jQuery eq selector is 0-based.}

$('table tr:even').css('background-color', '#e5e5e5');

You can use :even and :odd selector:

$( "table tr:even" ).css( "background-color", "white" );
$( "table tr:odd" ).css( "background-color", "red" );

If you want to target the column then use:

$('table tr > :nth-child(even)').css('background-color','white');
$('table tr > :nth-child(odd)').css('background-color','red');

If you want to use just HTML and css you have to give every div even and odd class respectively. then give different css in you css file for both even and odd class.

<tr class="even"></tr>
<tr class="odd"></tr>
<tr class="even"></tr>


    tr.even {
        background-color: white;
    }

    tr.odd {
        background-color: black;
    }

if you want more dynamic way ,mean don't give class manually jquery will serach and add even odd div and give them specific class

Use jquery

$('tr:odd').addClass("odd")
$('tr:even').addClass("even")

and your css will be like this

tr.even {
    background-color: white;
}

tr.odd {
    background-color: black;
}