How To Make CSS Ellipsis Work on a Table Cell

Solution with the CSS display property

To make an ellipsis work on a table cell, you can use the CSS display property set to its "block" or "inline-block" value.

In our example below, besides the display property, we set the text-overflow to "ellipsis", use the "nowrap" value of the white-space property, set the overflow to "hidden". Also, we specify the width and border of our <td> element.

Example of adding an ellipsis on a table cell with the CSS display property:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Title of the document</title>
    <style>
      td {
        display: block;
        border: 2px solid #000;
        width: 60px;
        overflow: hidden;
        text-overflow: ellipsis;
        white-space: nowrap;
      }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <table>
      <tbody>
        <tr>
          <td>Hello World</td>
        </tr>
      </tbody>
    </table>
  </body>
</html>

Try it Yourself »

Result

Hello World

Solution with the CSS table-layout property

Another possible way of making an ellipsis work on a table cell is using the CSS table-layout property with its "fixed" value on the <table> and specifying its width.

Example of adding an ellipsis on a table cell with the CSS table-layout and width properties:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Title of the document</title>
    <style>
      table {
        table-layout: fixed;
        width: 60px;
      }
      td {
        border: 2px solid #000;
        width: 60px;
        overflow: hidden;
        text-overflow: ellipsis;
        white-space: nowrap;
      }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <table>
      <tbody>
        <tr>
          <td>Hello World</td>
        </tr>
      </tbody>
    </table>
  </body>
</html>