Z-index not working inside a table if there is an overflow-scroll on container

Question

I'm having a problem positioning an absolute div outside a table, I'm not a big fan of table layout but I found an existing project with a table layout. The code is as follows

<td colspan="2" align="right" style="padding-top:3px; padding-right:15px; padding-bottom:15px;" width="600px">
    <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
        <tr><td height="37px" width="600px" style="background-image:url('P--IMG--P/welcomepanel/header.png'); background-repeat:no-repeat; background-position:bottom left;"><span class="heading" id="I--heading_text--I" style="padding-top:3px;"></span></td></tr>
        <tr>
            <td align='left' valign='middle' width="600px" height="522px" style="background-image:url('P--IMG--P/welcomepanel/middelblock_repeat.png'); background-repeat: repeat-y; padding-top:0px">
                <div height="500px" width="580px" style="width:600px; text-align:left; height:500px; overflow-y:scroll; overflow-x:none;">
                    [--C--comp--C--]
                </div>
            </td>
        </tr>
        <tr><td><img src="P--IMG--P/welcomepanel/middelblock_roundcorners.png"/></td></tr>
    </table>
</td>

Where [--C--comp--C--] is the replacement string for an fckEditor that contains an image inside a div, I have set that div's z-index to 10 but it doesn't want to go out of the table.. and its position absolute.

Please let me know what I might be doing wrong.

I've realised that the problem comes with the overflow-scroll on the td container, if you remove the overflow-y:scroll it works fine, but the problem is that I need to have that overflow since there is a lot of content inside that td. I don't know what to do now. :(..someone please help a brother out!

I need the small map to be outside the table and the big map to remain inside the table, it shows the small image when you hover on the big map using Jquery to zoom, which is loaded on the fckeditor. I hope this helps..

Answer 1

For z-index to work correctly, every element that has a z-index property must also have any position set ( e.g.position:relative ). Also, I'd assign the table a position and z-index for the two to compare.