HTML table with fixed headers?

I was looking for a solution for this for a while and found most of the answers are not working or not suitable for my situation, so I wrote a simple solution with jQuery.

This is the solution outline:

  1. Clone the table that needs to have a fixed header, and place the cloned copy on top of the original.
  2. Remove the table body from top table.
  3. Remove the table header from bottom table.
  4. Adjust the column widths. (We keep track of the original column widths)

Below is the code in a runnable demo.

function scrolify(tblAsJQueryObject, height) {
  var oTbl = tblAsJQueryObject;

  // for very large tables you can remove the four lines below
  // and wrap the table with <div> in the mark-up and assign
  // height and overflow property  
  var oTblDiv = $("<div/>");
  oTblDiv.css('height', height);
  oTblDiv.css('overflow', 'scroll');
  oTbl.wrap(oTblDiv);

  // save original width
  oTbl.attr("data-item-original-width", oTbl.width());
  oTbl.find('thead tr td').each(function() {
    $(this).attr("data-item-original-width", $(this).width());
  });
  oTbl.find('tbody tr:eq(0) td').each(function() {
    $(this).attr("data-item-original-width", $(this).width());
  });


  // clone the original table
  var newTbl = oTbl.clone();

  // remove table header from original table
  oTbl.find('thead tr').remove();
  // remove table body from new table
  newTbl.find('tbody tr').remove();

  oTbl.parent().parent().prepend(newTbl);
  newTbl.wrap("<div/>");

  // replace ORIGINAL COLUMN width				
  newTbl.width(newTbl.attr('data-item-original-width'));
  newTbl.find('thead tr td').each(function() {
    $(this).width($(this).attr("data-item-original-width"));
  });
  oTbl.width(oTbl.attr('data-item-original-width'));
  oTbl.find('tbody tr:eq(0) td').each(function() {
    $(this).width($(this).attr("data-item-original-width"));
  });
}

$(document).ready(function() {
  scrolify($('#tblNeedsScrolling'), 160); // 160 is height
});
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.4/jquery.min.js"></script>

<div style="width:300px;border:6px green solid;">
  <table border="1" width="100%" id="tblNeedsScrolling">
    <thead>
      <tr><th>Header 1</th><th>Header 2</th></tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
      <tr><td>row 1, cell 1</td><td>row 1, cell 2</td></tr>
      <tr><td>row 2, cell 1</td><td>row 2, cell 2</td></tr>
      <tr><td>row 3, cell 1</td><td>row 3, cell 2</td></tr>
      <tr><td>row 4, cell 1</td><td>row 4, cell 2</td></tr>			
      <tr><td>row 5, cell 1</td><td>row 5, cell 2</td></tr>
      <tr><td>row 6, cell 1</td><td>row 6, cell 2</td></tr>
      <tr><td>row 7, cell 1</td><td>row 7, cell 2</td></tr>
      <tr><td>row 8, cell 1</td><td>row 8, cell 2</td></tr>			
    </tbody>
  </table>
</div>

This solution works in Chrome and IE. Since it is based on jQuery, this should work in other jQuery supported browsers as well.


This can be cleanly solved in four lines of code.

If you only care about modern browsers, a fixed header can be achieved much easier by using CSS transforms. Sounds odd, but works great:

  • HTML and CSS stay as-is.
  • No external JavaScript dependencies.
  • Four lines of code.
  • Works for all configurations (table-layout: fixed, etc.).
document.getElementById("wrap").addEventListener("scroll", function(){
   var translate = "translate(0,"+this.scrollTop+"px)";
   this.querySelector("thead").style.transform = translate;
});

Support for CSS transforms is widely available except for Internet Explorer 8-.

Here is the full example for reference:

document.getElementById("wrap").addEventListener("scroll",function(){
   var translate = "translate(0,"+this.scrollTop+"px)";
   this.querySelector("thead").style.transform = translate;
});
/* Your existing container */
#wrap {
    overflow: auto;
    height: 400px;
}

/* CSS for demo */
td {
    background-color: green;
    width: 200px;
    height: 100px;
}
<div id="wrap">
    <table>
        <thead>
            <tr>
                <th>Foo</th>
                <th>Bar</th>
            </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
            <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
            <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
            <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
            <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
            <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
            <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
            <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
            <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
            <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
            <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
            <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
            <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
        </tbody>
    </table>
</div>

Tags:

Javascript

Css

Html Table

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