Tables overflowing with CSS in Firefox

Question

I'm having trouble getting my table to behave. The content keeps overflowing and my attempts to restrict it are not producing the desired effect.

This is my markup:

<div class="repeatingdiv">
 <div class="hastitle">Some title</div>  
 <div class="hastable">
  <table>
   <thead><tr><th></th></tr></thead>     
   <tfoot><tr><th></th></tr></tfoot>
   <tbody>   
    <tr>
     <td class="col1">Col 1</td>
     <td class="col2">Col 2</td>
     <td class="col3">Col 3</td>
    </tr>
   </tbody>
  </table>
 </div>
</div>

I then have some style. The td's are overflowing, but I didn't have any luck setting their overflow to hidden/auto. I did have better luck setting overflow in the hastable class that contains the table. But I'm still having trouble getting Firefox to respect the width distribution for the 3 columns: 30%, 35%, 35%. I also tried setting min-width, but still no luck. I have several of these tables on the page, and each one takes its own width. Any help with this table mess?

.repeatingdiv { }
.hastitle      { margin:0 10px; padding:3px 3px 1px 6px; }       
.hastable      { overflow:hidden; 
                 text-overflow: ellipsis; 
                 margin:10px; 
                 padding:10px; 
               }
table          { }
table tbody    { width: 100%; }
tr    { width: 100%; }
td.col1     { width:30%; min-width:30%; }
td.col2  { width:35%; min-width:35%; }
td.col3  { width:35%; min-width:35%; }

Answer 1

Tables are notoriously difficult to style. Try adding this to your CSS:

table { table-layout: fixed; width: 100% /* or whatever fixed width */; }

I'd also suggest using actual HTML COL / COLGROUP elements to define your columns, as so:

<table>
 <colgroup class="col1" />
 <colgroup class="col2" />
 <colgroup class="col3" />
 <thead><tr><th></th></tr></thead>     
 <tfoot><tr><th></th></tr></tfoot>
 <tbody>   
  <tr>
   <td>Col 1</td>
   <td>Col 2</td>
   <td>Col 3</td>
  </tr>
 </tbody>
</table>

Do take note that, despite this, cells with overflowing data will force the containing cell, row, and table to expand to fit. CSS overflow: auto / hidden / scroll do not affect cells.

Ref:

• CSS: Table Layout,
• HTML: COLGROUP

Answer 2

Wrap your table in a div and set overflow for the div.

<div style='overflow:scroll;'>
    <table>
      ...
    </table>
</div>