HTMLTableRowElement: insertCell() method

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The insertCell() method of the HTMLTableRowElement interface inserts a new cell (<td>) into a table row (<tr>) and returns a reference to the cell.

Note: insertCell() inserts the cell directly into the row. The cell does not need to be appended separately with Node.appendChild() as would be the case if Document.createElement() had been used to create the new <td> element.

You can not use insertCell() to create a new <th> element though.

Syntax

js
insertCell()
insertCell(index)

html
<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>C1</th>
      <th>C2</th>
      <th>C3</th>
      <th>C4</th>
      <th>C5</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>Cell 1</td>
      <td>Cell 2</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

<button id="add">Add a cell</button>
<button id="remove">Remove last cell</button>
<div>This first row has <output>2</output> cell(s).</div>

table {
  border-collapse: collapse;
}

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

button {
  margin: 1em 1em 1em 0;
}

JavaScript

js
// Obtain relevant interface elements
const bodySection = document.querySelectorAll("tbody")[0];
const row = bodySection.rows[0]; // Select the first row of the body section
const cells = row.cells; // The collection is live, therefore always up-to-date
const cellNumberDisplay = document.querySelectorAll("output")[0];

const addButton = document.getElementById("add");
const removeButton = document.getElementById("remove");

function updateCellNumber() {
  cellNumberDisplay.textContent = cells.length;
}

addButton.addEventListener("click", () => {
  // Add a new cell at the end of the first row
  const newCell = row.insertCell();
  newCell.textContent = `Cell ${cells.length}`;

  // Update the row counter
  updateCellNumber();
});

removeButton.addEventListener("click", () => {
  // Delete the row from the body
  row.deleteCell(-1);

  // Update the row counter
  updateCellNumber();
});

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HTMLTableRowElement: insertCell() method

In this article

Syntax

Parameters

Return value

Exceptions

Examples

HTML

JavaScript

Result

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

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