Tables with Fixed Headers and Horizontal Scroll

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Style Pass

2024-10-10 22:30:04

Turns out, creating an HTML table that has both horizontal scroll and fixed headers can be a tricky problem. As another developer said about this problem, You would think this is easy. But is really isn't.

When working with a table that has a lot of columns, you can ensure everything remains visible by adding horizontal scroll. You can do this by wrapping the table in a div that has overflow-x set to auto.

Note: I prefer to use overflow-x: auto instead of overflow-x: scroll because scroll will always show the scroll container, even if there is no scroll available. It looks cleaner.

You might think that adding position: sticky to the thead of the table would ensure that as you scroll down, the headers will remain fixed to the top of the screen until you scroll past the table. T

Since you're now using an overflow container, position: sticky will only apply to the overflow container, and if you're not scrolling within it, it will just be ignored.