Make link in table cell fill the entire row height

I have a table of data and each cell is a link. I want to allow the user to click anywhere in the table cell and have them follow the link. Sometimes the table cells are more than one line but not always. I use td a {display: block} to get the link to cover most of the cell. When there is one cell in a row that is two lines and the others are only one line the one liners don't fill the entire vertical space of the table row. Here is the sample HTML and you can see it in action here http://www.jsfiddle.net/RXHuE/:

<head>
<style type="text/css">
  td {width: 200px}
  td a {display: block; height:100%; width:100%;}
  td a:hover {background-color: yellow;}
</style>
<title></title>
</head>
<body>
<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>
        <a href="http://www.google.com/">Cell 1<br>
        second line</a>
      </td>
      <td>
        <a href="http://www.google.com/">Cell 2</a>
      </td>
      <td>
        <a href="http://www.google.com/">Cell 3</a>
      </td>
      <td>
        <a href="http://www.google.com/">Cell 4</a>
      </td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>
</body>

Solution 1:

Set an arbitrarily large negative margin and equal padding on the block element and overflow hidden on the parent.

td {
    overflow: hidden;
}
td a {
    display: block;
    margin: -10em;
    padding: 10em;
}

http://jsfiddle.net/RXHuE/213/

Solution 2:

You need a small change in your CSS. Making td height:100%; works for IE 8 and FF 3.6, but it doesn't work for Chrome.

td {
  width: 200px;
  border: solid 1px green;
  height: 100%
}
td a {
  display: block;
  height:100%;
  width:100%;
}

But making height to 50px works for Chrome in addition to IE and FF

td {
  width: 200px;
  border: solid 1px green;
  height: 50px
}
td a {
  display: block;
  height:100%;
  width:100%;
}

Edit:

You have given the solution yourself in another post here; which is to use display: inline-block;. This works when combined with my solution for Chrome, FF3.6, IE8

td {
  width: 200px;
  border: solid 1px green;
  height: 100%}
td a {
  display: inline-block;
  height:100%;
  width:100%;
}

Update

The following code is working for me in IE8, FF3.6 and chrome.

CSS

td {
  width: 200px;
  border: solid 1px green;
  height: 100%;
}
td a {
  display: inline-block;
  height:100%;
  width:100%;
}
td a:hover {
  background-color: yellow;
}

HTML

<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>
        <a href="http://www.google.com/">Cell 1<br>
        second line</a>
      </td>
      <td>
        <a href="http://www.google.com/">Cell 2</a>
      </td>
      <td>
        <a href="http://www.google.com/">Cell 3</a>
      </td>
      <td>
        <a href="http://www.google.com/">Cell 4</a>
      </td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

The example lays here

Solution 3:

Little late to the party, but there's a nice solution I just discovered.

You can use a combination of relative and absolute positioned elements, along with a pseudo element to get the effect you're looking for. No extra markup needed!

Change the table cell (<td>), to be position: relative;, and create a ::before or ::after pseudo element on the <a> tag, and set it to position: absolute;, and also use top: 0; left: 0; right: 0; bottom: 0;.

Because the pseudo element is attached to the anchor tag, and you're telling it to take up the entire table cell, it will force the anchor tag to be at least that size, whilst not affecting the actual content of the anchor tag itself (thereby retaining its vertically centered alignment).

For example

table {
  border-collapse: collapse;
  table-layout: fixed;
}

td {
  position: relative;
  width: 200px;
  padding: 0.5em 1em;
  border: 2px solid red;
  
  background-color: lime;
}

td a {
  /* FONT STYLES HERE */
  text-decoration: none;
}

td a::after {
  content: '';
  position: absolute;
  top: 0;
  left: 0;
  right: 0;
  bottom: 0;
  z-index: 0;
}

<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>
        <a href="http://www.google.com/">Cell 1<br>
        second line</a>
      </td>
      <td>
        <a href="http://www.google.com/">Cell 2</a>
      </td>
      <td>
        <a href="http://www.google.com/">Cell 3</a>
      </td>
      <td>
        <a href="http://www.google.com/">Cell 4</a>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>
        <a href="http://www.google.com/">Cell 5</a>
      </td>
      <td>
        <a href="http://www.google.com/">Cell 6<br>
        second line</a>
      </td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Hope this helps!

Make link in table cell fill the entire row height

Solution 1:

Solution 2:

Solution 3:

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