Re: Two validators report different results.

I asked Grok to explain the message from validator w3.org, and it gave a
somewhat lengthy explanation, which I won’t quote here, but the basic point
was:

”*Table column 2 established by element td has no cells beginning in it.*

…means that your table *defines / implies the existence of column 2*, but *no
cell actually starts* in that column.
This is an *HTML table model error* (a conformance problem according to the
HTML specification). Browsers usually render the table anyway (often by
guessing), but the validator is strict and flags it.”

The simple fix is to remove the colspan=2 attributes and, if needed,
adjust your width settings for columns accordingly and/or modify the
JavaScript code that operates on the cells.

Jukka Korpela

to 12.2.2026 klo 19.00 Susta, Alessandro (Alessandro.Susta@wolterskluwer.com)
kirjoitti:

> Good morning.
>
>
>
> I am a programmer and currently I am dealing with conversion of books
> containing lots of tables.
>
> I had to validate some tables and I used 2 different tools:
>
>    - https://validator.w3.org/nu/#textarea
>    -
>    https://wet-boew.github.io/wet-boew-legacy/v3.1/demos/tableparser/validator-htmltable.html
>
>
>
> I found a case in which I get different results.
>
>
>
> <html lang='en'>
>
> <head><title>dummy</title></head>
>
> <body>
>
> <table>
>
> <tr>
>
>   <td colspan="2">text</td>
>
>   <td>1</td>
>
>   <td>2</td>
>
> </tr>
>
> <tr>
>
>   <td colspan="2">text</td>
>
>   <td>1</td>
>
>   <td>2</td>
>
> </tr>
>
> </table>
>
> </body>
>
> </html>
>
>
>
> Nu Html Checker reports an error: Table column 2 established by
> element td has no cells beginning in it.
>
> WEP table validator reports Ok
>
>
>
> Who is correct?
>
>
>
> It is not a big issue but it is confusing.
>
>
>
> If I can say my point of view … I see table as syntactically correct (all
> rows have the same number of columns, all tags are properly opened and
> closed) even if it does not make sense to set the same colspan on all first
> cells of each row.
>
>
>
> To be fully transparent, i am writing this mail to both programs.
>
>
>
>
>
> Thank you
>
> Alessandro Susta
>
>
>
> Alessandro Susta
>
> Senior Product Software Engineer
>
> */dxg - Digital eXperience Group
> Wolters Kluwer Italy S.r.l.
>
> Office +39 02 82476 455
> alessandro.susta@wolterskluwer.com
>
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Received on Monday, 16 February 2026 11:52:43 UTC