Transform HTML Table into Card View Using Nothing But CSS

I’d like share a recent experiment that explores how to transform a plain, old-fashioned HTML table into a dynamic card view, going beyond the traditional rows and columns.

Start With a Simple HTML Table

Let’s begin with a simple HTML table such as the following.

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<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Company</th>
<th>Contact</th>
<th>Country</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Alfreds Futterkiste</td>
<td>Maria Anders</td>
<td>Germany</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Centro Moctezuma</td>
<td>Francisco Chang</td>
<td>Mexico</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Alfreds </td>
<td>Maria </td>
<td>Germany</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Centro </td>
<td>Francisco Chang</td>
<td>Mexico</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Alfreds </td>
<td>Maria </td>
<td>Germany</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Centro comercial </td>
<td>Francisco </td>
<td>Mexico</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Alfreds </td>
<td>Maria Anders</td>
<td>Germany</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Centro comercial </td>
<td>Francisco </td>
<td>Mexico</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

It looks like this when rendered in browser.

plain table

Just another html table with rows and columns. Nothing fancy.

So how can we transform the traditional rows and columns layout into something more dynamic?

Discover the Power of CSS Grid

Tables don’t have to be boring. With a few simple CSS tricks, you can easily transform a traditional HTML table into a sleek list or card view.

The best part? No JavaScript, just pure CSS!

CSS grid has been an W3C Candidate Recommendation Draft since 2007, however, it has been adopted by the recent versions of all current major browsers.

CSS grid is designed for both rows and columns, making it ideal for complex layouts such as table. It allows you to manage both horizontal and vertical alignments simultaneously, which gives you much more control than Flexbox, which is primarily one-dimensional (row or column).

CSS Grid Properties to Use

Use CSS grid layout for <thead> and <tbody>.
Use CSS display property and set all <td> to be block elements

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table tbody, table thead {
display: grid;
}
table td {
display: block;
}

With the CSS above, our plain HTML table already magically transforms into a responsive list view, displaying each record neatly in a single column.

table single column

It’s looking good but a bit chaotic! Let’s sprinkle on some CSS borders to give each row in our list a little breathing room.

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table, th, tr {
border: 1px solid black;
}

There you go. Not too shabby for a list view created without a single line of JavaScript!

table singl column with border

Now we got a nice list made from an old-fashioned html table, how do we turn that nice list into a card view?

Spoiler alert: just sprinkle on a few more lines of CSS!

Transform List into Card View

Our final card trick to transform table into cards is to use CSS grid property grid-template-columns:

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table tbody {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: repeat(4, 1fr);
}

grid-template-columns is a CSS property used in the CSS Grid layout to define the structure of the grid’s columns. It specifies the number of columns, their widths, and how the space within the grid is divided.

With the repeat() function, the first parameter lets us decide how many columns we want—let’s say 4. The second parameter tells those columns how big to be—1fr, or one fraction of the available space. It’s like telling your columns to all get an equal slice of the space pie.

Our final card view

final card view

Take a moment to explore the code and see the results for yourself over on CodePen. It’s the perfect place to experiment and play around with CSS grid transformations.

Keep in mind that CSS Grid is also responsive, providing developers with enhanced control over how layouts adjust and reflow across various screen sizes and devices.

Optional: Adding data-label to card view

While the card view is visually appealing, it lacks the clarity of column information, leaving users to guess the data represented in each card.

By incorporating a touch of JavaScript, we can seamlessly add data labels for each column, enhancing the association between the labels and their corresponding cells.

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// Store each column header to array
var labels = [];
$('table').find('thead th').each(function() {
labels.push($(this).text());
});

// Add data-label attribute to each cell
$('table).find('tbody tr').each(function() {
$(this).find('td').each(function(column) {
$(this).attr('data-label', labels[column]);
});
});

The same code above using ES6 vanilla javascript without jQuery

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// Store each column header to array
const labels = [];
document.querySelectorAll('table thead th').forEach(th => {
labels.push(th.textContent);
});

// Add data-label attribute to each cell
document.querySelectorAll('table tbody tr').forEach(tr => {
tr.querySelectorAll('td').forEach((td, column) => {
td.setAttribute('data-label', labels[column]);
});
});

Here’s card view new look with data label:

card view enhanced

Demo

It’s nothing like the html table that we started with. With CSS Grid, the layout options are endless because it allows for full control over both rows and columns in a two-dimensional space.

Final thought…

This tutorial only scratches the surface of the iceberg. You can easily create more responsive layouts, overlap elements, span items across multiple rows or columns, and adjust grid areas dynamically, making it highly versatile for various layout needs.

Happy gridding!

Richard