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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-13T19:36:19+00:00

While looking at table structure with rowspan and colspan, I stubbled upon two instances

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While looking at table structure with rowspan and colspan, I stubbled upon two instances which were interesting.

View jsfiddle

The first table should have three rows, but the last row stays in the second row. While I understand that this is fixed if I change the bottom rowspan to 1, instead of 2, why doesn’t it work this way?

<table border="1">
    <tr>
        <td rowspan="3">3</td>
        <td>1</td>
        <td>1</td>
        <td>1</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td rowspan="2">2</td>
        <td rowspan="2">2</td>
        <td rowspan="2">2</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td colspan="4">bottom</td>
    </tr>
</table>

The second table should have a bottom border, but does not show one. Again, I realize the bottom row and the left box would work with a rowspan of 2 for the left side, and a rowspan of 1 for the bottom row, but I was wondering why it doesn’t work the way I showed in jsfiddle.

<table border="1">
    <tr>
        <td rowspan="3">3</td>
        <td>1</td>
        <td>1</td>
        <td>1</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td rowspan="2">2</td>
        <td rowspan="2">2</td>
        <td rowspan="2">2</td>
    </tr>
</table>
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The 1st table is malformed because all of the columns from above have rowspan > 1. The 3rd row has no columns left in which to add a cell, but you have colspan=4.

    The second table is malformed because all of the columns in the second row have rowspan > 1, hence there is no final row and no bottom border.

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