Question

I have a table which for other reasons I prefer to keep table-collapse: separate. However, I would like to be able to highlight an individual row or column. Unfortunately, it seems that any style applied to the <tr> or <col> tags only applies to the cells, not the space between them. For instance:

<style>
  td { width: 10px; height: 10px; }
</style>
<table style="background-color: purple">
  <colgroup>
    <col span="2">
    <col style="background-color: red;">
    <col span="2">
  <colgroup>
  <tr><td><td><td><td><td></tr>
  <tr><td><td><td><td><td></tr>
  <tr style="background-color: orange;"><td><td><td><td><td></tr>
  <tr><td><td><td><td><td></tr>
  <tr><td><td><td><td><td></tr>
</table>

results in a purple table with 5 vertical cells and 5 horizontal cells filled with color but not the entire row or column.

Do I have any option besides using border-collapse: collapse to fill in that space between cells in a given row or column?

Answer 1

If you use constant row width, you can use colspan to merge all cells of some row into one single cell, and then create a new table in it with separate borders with the background color of your choice.