empty-cells

The empty-cells CSS property specifies how user agents should render borders and backgrounds around cells that have no visible content.

Initial value	show
Applies to	table-cell elements
Inherited	yes
Media	visual
Computed value	as specified
Animation type	discrete
Canonical order	the unique non-ambiguous order defined by the formal grammar

Syntax

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

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

Values

show

Is a keyword indicating that borders and backgrounds should be drawn like in normal cells.

hide

Is a keyword indicating that no borders or backgrounds should be drawn.

Formal syntax

show | hide

Example

HTML

<table class="table_1">
    <tr>
        <td>Moe</td>
        <td>Larry</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>Curly</td>
        <td></td>
    </tr>
</table>
<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 #999;
  padding: 0.5rem;
}

Result

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
CSS Level 2 (Revision 1) The definition of 'empty-cells' in that specification.	Recommendation	Initial definition

Browser compatibility