Question: I have a number of tables with the same columns and it would look a lot nicer if they shared the same column widths. Is such a thing possible? Putting them in the same table with some rows with no borders between them isn't an option.

**Edit:** Yeah I'm aware I can fix the widths myself but I was hoping for something that would tie in to the browser's column width algorithm but simply tied two or more tables together for the purpose of doing that layout.

I didn't think such a thing was possible but I thought I'd check just in case.

Answer: 
It's only possible if you can fix-width the columns. If you can set a fixed width then some css like this should work:

```
td {
    width: 25%;
}

```

You can customize each columns width like this:

```
<table>
  <tr>
    <td class="col1">...</td>
    <td class="col2">...</td>
  </tr>
</table>
...
<table>
  <tr>
    <td class="col1">...</td>
    <td class="col2">...</td>
  </tr>
</table>

```

and then specify the widths like this:

```
.col1 {
   width: 25%;
}
.col2 {
   width: 75%;
}

```
I'm almost shocked that no one has suggested [column groups](http://htmlhelp.com/reference/html40/tables/colgroup.html)! With it you can give a column a specific class, width, and other helpful properties. And since it's HTML 4.01 it's supported by all browsers that support the doctype.