Padding a table row

Html Problem Overview

<html>
    <head>
        <title>Table Row Padding Issue</title>
        <style type="text/css">
            tr {
                padding: 20px;
            }
        </style>
    </head>
    <body>
        <table>
            <tbody>
                <tr>
                    <td>
                        <h2>Lorem Ipsum</h2>
                        <p>Fusce sodales lorem nec magna iaculis a fermentum lacus facilisis. Curabitur sodales risus sit amet
                        neque fringilla feugiat. Ut tellus nulla, bibendum at faucibus ut, convallis eget neque. In hac habitasse 
                        platea dictumst. Nullam elit enim, gravida eu blandit ut, pellentesque nec turpis. Proin faucibus, sem sed 
                        tempor auctor, ipsum velit pellentesque lorem, ut semper lorem eros ac eros. Vivamus mi urna, tempus vitae 
                        mattis eget, pretium sit amet sapien. Curabitur viverra lacus non tortor luctus vitae euismod purus 
                        hendrerit. Praesent ut venenatis eros. Nulla a ligula erat. Mauris lobortis tempus nulla non 
                        scelerisque.</p>
                    </td>
                </tr>
            </tbody>
        </table>
    </body>
</html>

Here's what the padding looks like. See how the td inside isn't affected. What's the solution? Table Row Padding Issue

Html Solutions

Solution 1 - Html

The trick is to give padding on the td elements, but make an exception for the first (yes, it's hacky, but sometimes you have to play by the browser's rules):

td {
  padding-top:20px;
  padding-bottom:20px;
  padding-right:20px;   
}

td:first-child {
  padding-left:20px;
  padding-right:0;
}

First-child is relatively well supported: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/CSS/:first-child

You can use the same reasoning for the horizontal padding by using tr:first-child td.

Alternatively, exclude the first column by using the not operator. Support for this is not as good right now, though.

td:not(:first-child) {
  padding-top:20px;
  padding-bottom:20px;
  padding-right:20px;       
}

Solution 2 - Html

In CSS 1 and CSS 2 specifications, padding was available for all elements including <tr>. Yet support of padding for table-row (<tr>) has been removed in CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 specifications. I have never found the reason behind this annoying change which also affect margin property and a few other table elements (header, footer, and columns).

Update: in Feb 2015, this thread on the [email protected] mailing list discussed about adding support of padding and border for table-row. This would apply the standard box model also to table-row and table-column elements. It would permit such examples. The thread seems to suggest that table-row padding support never existed in CSS standards because it would have complicated layout engines. In the 30 September 2014 Editor's Draft of CSS basic box model, padding and border properties exist for all elements including table-row and table-column elements. If it eventually becomes a W3C recommendation, your html+css example may work as intended in browsers at last.

Solution 3 - Html

Option 1

You could also solve it by adding a transparent border to the row (tr), like this

HTML

<table>
    <tr> 
         <td>1</td>
    </tr>
    <tr> 
         <td>2</td>
    </tr>
</table>

CSS

tr {
    border-top: 12px solid transparent;
    border-bottom: 12px solid transparent;
}

Works like a charm, although if you need regular borders, then this method will sadly not work.

Option 2

Since rows act as a way to group cells, the correct way to do this, would be to use

table {
    border-collapse: inherit;
    border-spacing: 0 10px;
}

Solution 4 - Html

give the td padding

Solution 5 - Html

Add a before element:

tr::before {
  content: "";
  margin-left: 10px;
}

It was important to me in the context of 'responsive' tables, ie td {display: table-row; }

Solution 6 - Html

You could simply add this style to the table.

table {
    border-spacing: 15px;
}

Solution 7 - Html

This is a very old post, but I thought I should post my solution of a similar problem I faced recently.

Answer : I solved this issue by displaying the tr element as a block element i.e. specifying a CSS of display:block for the tr element. You can see this in code sample below.

<style>
  tr {
    display: block;
    padding-bottom: 20px;
  }
  table {
    border: 1px solid red;
  }
</style>
<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>
        <h2>Lorem Ipsum</h2>
        <p>Fusce sodales lorem nec magna iaculis a fermentum lacus facilisis. Curabitur sodales risus sit amet neque fringilla feugiat. Ut tellus nulla, bibendum at faucibus ut, convallis eget neque. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Nullam elit enim, gravida
          eu blandit ut, pellentesque nec turpis. Proin faucibus, sem sed tempor auctor, ipsum velit pellentesque lorem, ut semper lorem eros ac eros. Vivamus mi urna, tempus vitae mattis eget, pretium sit amet sapien. Curabitur viverra lacus non tortor
          luctus vitae euismod purus hendrerit. Praesent ut venenatis eros. Nulla a ligula erat. Mauris lobortis tempus nulla non scelerisque.
        </p>
      </td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>
<br>
<br>This TEXT IS BELOW and OUTSIDE the TABLE element. NOTICE how the red table border is pushed down below the end of paragraph due to bottom padding being specified for the tr element. The key point here is that the tr element must be displayed as a block
in order for padding to apply at the tr level.

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Spencer	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Html	Joeri Hendrickx	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Html	Futal	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Html	Karl Johan Vallner	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Html	Moin Zaman	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Html	Chris Pink	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Html	Ifesinachi Bryan	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Html	Sunil	View Answer on Stackoverflow