Table Formatting

[richard_meader]

I'm using a table on my homepage to better organize my course. I'm having trouble formatting the table. Is there a way to make all text start at the top of the cell in stead of in the center? Also, is there a way to align all the columns and/or rows to be the same size? Can I remove the spaces that occur after I hit return to start a new line?

[James · Accepted solution]

 @joel_kong  

Vertical alignment isn't a table property, it's under Cell properties.

When you get there, you can set V Align.

That doesn't actually use the valign attribute, which is good, it sets a style for you.

<td style="width: 50%; vertical-align: top;">

I tested it in Chrome and it allowed the vertical-alignment attribute for the row, but it's not supported for tr. It is supported for inline, inline-block, and table-cell elements.

Canvas is doing what the specification allows, so if you want an entire row to be aligned at the top, you need to highlight the cells in the row, and then expand the table menu, go to cell, cell properties, v align, and then top.

Yes, that's buried. But in fairness, tables weren't designed to be used for layout purposes, they were meant for tabular data. People used them for layout because of deficiencies in HTML formatting. When CSS came along, it was supposed to fix much of that and so you should use CSS to do layout now. Tables have some issues that make them problematic and some people say you should never use them for layout. The problem there is that Canvas strips out much of the CSS that would be used for layout or requires that it be placed inline which makes it beyond the skill set of many instructors (and a pain for developers). That kind of pushes people to go back to using tables for layout because it's easy and it works on their screen -- and people who aren't aware of the accessibility issues often don't think about what it looks like for other people because we frame our lives through our experiences.

Here are some pages that explain more.

• WebAIM: Creating Accessible Tables - Layout Tables 
• HTML table basics - Learn web development | MDN  (especially the section on When should you NOT use HTML tables?)

I did see a blog post this morning about someone designing templates for Canvas. I don't use templates, preferring to keep my content simple and let Canvas take care of it, but they were using the grid CSS classes to create a table-like experience: https://community.canvaslms.com/groups/canvas-developers/blog/2020/04/23/ready-made-canvas-templates... . I have not looked into it enough to know if that is sustainable or someone is making use of undocumented ways that Canvas works. It looks like some of it came from the Canvas Styleguide, which has been deprecated.

[rshutt2]

I also have the question on how to format the tables so that all columns are formatted at the top of the table.

I was able to open the html editor and size the column widths manually.  Look for each of the text strings <td style="width: 33.3333%;"> and change the width to a percentage as needed.  In my example text, I have 3 columns that are all equally spaced at 33%.  If I wanted to have two small columns and one wider one I would change it to <td style="width: 40%;">

To remove the space at the end of each row, you can hit shift+enter and will continue the paragraph but break it where you want it.

[rshutt2]

Maybe you could place it into my existing string in the right place for me?

<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width: 33.3333%;">
<h2><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Required Textbook:</strong></span></h2>

[joel_kong]

So there is is no way to control this formatting, aside from in HTML?

Just to confirm

• We can adjust the text alignment (Left/Center/right) in Rich Editor
• We can adjust the table itself, including the border thickness in Rich Editor
• We CAN'T control the text to 'align' to the top of the table..... ? (Screenshot below)

[James · Accepted solution]

 @joel_kong  

Vertical alignment isn't a table property, it's under Cell properties.

When you get there, you can set V Align.

That doesn't actually use the valign attribute, which is good, it sets a style for you.

<td style="width: 50%; vertical-align: top;">

I tested it in Chrome and it allowed the vertical-alignment attribute for the row, but it's not supported for tr. It is supported for inline, inline-block, and table-cell elements.

Canvas is doing what the specification allows, so if you want an entire row to be aligned at the top, you need to highlight the cells in the row, and then expand the table menu, go to cell, cell properties, v align, and then top.

Yes, that's buried. But in fairness, tables weren't designed to be used for layout purposes, they were meant for tabular data. People used them for layout because of deficiencies in HTML formatting. When CSS came along, it was supposed to fix much of that and so you should use CSS to do layout now. Tables have some issues that make them problematic and some people say you should never use them for layout. The problem there is that Canvas strips out much of the CSS that would be used for layout or requires that it be placed inline which makes it beyond the skill set of many instructors (and a pain for developers). That kind of pushes people to go back to using tables for layout because it's easy and it works on their screen -- and people who aren't aware of the accessibility issues often don't think about what it looks like for other people because we frame our lives through our experiences.

Here are some pages that explain more.

• WebAIM: Creating Accessible Tables - Layout Tables 
• HTML table basics - Learn web development | MDN  (especially the section on When should you NOT use HTML tables?)

I did see a blog post this morning about someone designing templates for Canvas. I don't use templates, preferring to keep my content simple and let Canvas take care of it, but they were using the grid CSS classes to create a table-like experience: https://community.canvaslms.com/groups/canvas-developers/blog/2020/04/23/ready-made-canvas-templates... . I have not looked into it enough to know if that is sustainable or someone is making use of undocumented ways that Canvas works. It looks like some of it came from the Canvas Styleguide, which has been deprecated.

[joel_kong]

Hi James,

Thank you so much!!! 😃

[32205 · Accepted solution]

Steps to get your table to be aligned vertically at the top

edit mode → select the cells you want to change → click the three vertical dots ⋮ in the upper right corner of the Rich Content Editor → select the table icon

→ select "cell" → "cell properties" → choose V Align and set the dropdown box to "Top"

[DrDonUlin]

I'm also having this problem, wanting all of the cells in my table to be aligned at the top. I tried adding the element you recommend, but then Canvas strips it out.  Does anyone have another solution. Maybe Canvas no longer allows that element?