Add horizontal scrollbar to html table

Question

Is there a way to add a Horizontal scrollbar to an HTML table? I actually need it to be scrollable both vertically and horizontally depending on how the table grows but I can't get either scrollbar to appear.

Answer 1

Did you try CSS overflow property?

overflow: scroll; /* Scrollbar are always visible */
overflow: auto;   /* Scrollbar is displayed as it's needed */

UPDATE
As other users are pointing out, this is not enough to add the scrollbars.
So please, see and upvote comments and answers below.

Answer 2

First, make a display: block of your table

then, set overflow-x: to auto.

table {
    display: block;
    overflow-x: auto;
    white-space: nowrap;
}

Nice and clean. No superfluous formatting.

Here are more involved examples with scrolling table captions from a page on my website.

If an issue is taken about cells not filling the entire table, append the following additional CSS code:

table tbody {
    display: table;
    width: 100%;
}

Answer 3

Wrap the table in a DIV, set with the following style:

div.wrapper {
  width: 500px;
  height: 500px;
  overflow: auto;
}

Answer 4

Use the CSS attribute "overflow" for this.

Short summary:

overflow: visible|hidden|scroll|auto|initial|inherit;

e.g.

table {
    display: block;
    overflow: scroll;
}

Answer 5

This is an improvement of Serge Stroobandt's answer and works perfectly. It solves the issue of the table not filling the whole page width if it has less columns.

<style> 
 .table_wrapper{
    display: block;
    overflow-x: auto;
    white-space: nowrap;
}
</style>

<div class="table_wrapper">
<table>
...
</table>
</div>

Answer 6

Edit: @WickyNilliams has noted that setting display: block on a table body will strip the table of semantics and thus is not a good solution due to accessibility issues.

I had good success with the solution proposed by @Serge Stroobandt, but I encountered the problem @Shevy had with the cells then not filling the full width of the table. I was able to fix this by adding some styles to the tbody.

table {
  display: block;
  overflow-x: auto;
  white-space: nowrap;
}

table tbody {
  display: table;
  width: 100%;
}

This worked for me in Firefox, Chrome, and Safari on Mac.

Answer 7

I couldn't get any of the above solutions to work. However, I found a hack:

body {
  background-color: #ccc;
}

.container {
  width: 300px;
  background-color: white;
}

table {
  width: 100%;
  border-collapse: collapse;
}

td {
  border: 1px solid black;
}

/* try removing the "hack" below to see how the table overflows the .body */
.hack1 {
  display: table;
  table-layout: fixed;
  width: 100%;
}

.hack2 {
  display: table-cell;
  overflow-x: auto;
  width: 100%;
}

<div class="container">

  <div class="hack1">
    <div class="hack2">

      <table>
        <tr>
          <td>table or other arbitrary content</td>
          <td>that will cause your page to stretch</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td>uncontrollably</td>
          <td>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</td>
        </tr>
      </table>

    </div>
  </div>

</div>

Answer 8

I was running into the same issue. I discovered the following solution, which has only been tested in Chrome v31:

table {
    table-layout: fixed;
}

tbody {
    display: block;
    overflow: scroll;
}

Answer 9

Insert the table inside a div, so the table will take full length

HTML

<div class="scroll">
 <table>  </table>
</div>   

CSS

.scroll{
    overflow-x: auto;
    white-space: nowrap;
}

Answer 10

With bootstrap

 <div class="table-responsive">
   <table class="table">
     ...
   </table>
 </div>

Answer 11

I figured out this answer based on previous solution and it's comment and added some adjustments of my own. This works for me on the responsive table.

table {
  display: inline-block;
  overflow-x: auto;
  white-space: nowrap;
  // make fixed table width effected by overflow-x
  max-width: 100%;
  // hide all borders that make rows not filled with the table width
  border: 0;
}
// add missing borders
table td {
  border: 1px solid;
}

Answer 12

The 'more than 100% width' on the table really made it work for me.

.table-wrap {
    width: 100%;
    overflow: auto;
}

table {
    table-layout: fixed;
    width: 200%;
}

Answer 13

//Representation of table
<div class="search-table-outter">
<table class="table table-responsive search-table inner">
</table>
</div>

//Css to make Horizontal Dropdown

<style>

    .search-table{table-layout: auto; margin:40px auto 0px auto; }
    .search-table, td, th {
        border-collapse: collapse;
    }
th{padding:20px 7px; font-size:15px; color:#444;}
td{padding:5px 10px; height:35px;}
    .search-table-outter { overflow-x: scroll; }
th, td { min-width: 200px; }


</style>