Ensuring All Table Cells Have a Border

When using tables in html sometimes the border does not appear around all of the cells within the given table. consider the following example:

<TABLE  border="1">
  <TR>
    <TD>Day</TD>
    <TD>Apples</TD>
    <TD>Bananas</TD>
  </TR>
  <TR>
    <TD>Monday</TD>
    <TD>3</TD>
    <TD>2</TD>
  </TR>
  <TR>
    <TD>Tuesday</TD>
    <TD></TD>
    <TD>1</TD>
  </TR>
  <TR>
    <TD>Wednesday</TD>
    <TD></TD>
    <TD></TD>
  </TR>
</TABLE>

In the example above you will notice that the entry for Apples on Tuesday does not have all of its borders in place. The correction for this is simple, we need to ensure that the cell has some content. However, in this instance we wish the cell to be blank. To overcome the problem add the predefined special entry of into the cell. This then gives the result shown below.

<TR>
  <TD>Tuesday</TD>
  <TD> </TD>
  <TD>1</TD>
</TR>

NAT June 2005