empty-cells

The empty-cells CSS property sets whether borders and backgrounds appear around <table> cells that have no visible content.

The source for this interactive example is stored in a GitHub repository. If you'd like to contribute to the interactive examples project, please clone https://github.com/mdn/interactive-examples and send us a pull request.

This property has an effect only when the border-collapse property is separate.

Syntax

/* Keyword values */
empty-cells: show;
empty-cells: hide;

/* Global values */
empty-cells: inherit;
empty-cells: initial;
empty-cells: unset;

The empty-cells property is specified as one of the keyword values listed below.

Values

show

Borders and backgrounds are drawn like in normal cells.

hide

No borders or backgrounds are drawn.

Formal definition

Formal syntax

show | hide

Example

Showing and hiding empty table cells

HTML

<table class="table_1">
  <tr>
    <td>Moe</td>
    <td>Larry</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Curly</td>
    <td></td>
  </tr>
</table>
<br>
<table class="table_2">
  <tr>
    <td>Moe</td>
    <td>Larry</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Curly</td>
    <td></td>
  </tr>
</table>

CSS

.table_1 {
  empty-cells: show;
}

.table_2 {
  empty-cells: hide;
}

td,
th {
  border: 1px solid gray;
  padding: 0.5rem;
}

Result

Specifications

Browser compatibility