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You know, like a tic-tac-toe board. I was just pondering how to do this the other day, as one does. There are three ways I can think of. One involves a good handful of rules and is the way I intuitively think of, one involves a deprecated attribute, and one is very simple and feels kinda like a CSS trick.

Possibility #1) Removing the Borders You Don’t Need

This is the first way I think of. Add a border everywhere, then remove the border on the

1. The top of every cell in the first row
2. The bottom of every cell in the last row
3. The left of the first cell in every row
4. The right of last cell in every row

table {
  border-collapse: collapse;
}
table td {
  border: 5px solid black; 
}
table tr:first-child td {
  border-top: 0;
}
table tr td:first-child {
  border-left: 0;
}
table tr:last-child td {
  border-bottom: 0;
}
table tr td:last-child {
  border-right: 0;
}

See the Pen Inside Border on Table #1 by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier) on CodePen.

Possibility #1) The `rules` Attribute

This is not recommended as it’s a deprecated attribute. But, that’s what rules was specifically for.

See the Pen Inside Border on Table #1 by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier) on CodePen.

You can control the color with border-color, but not border-width or border-style.

Possibility #3) Using `border-style: hidden;`

This is the one that feels like a CSS trick to me.

table {
  border-collapse: collapse;
  border-style: hidden;
}
table td {
  border: 5px solid black;
}

MDN has an explanation:

In case of table cell and border collapsing, the hidden value has the highest priority: it means that if any other conflicting border is set, it won’t be displayed.

By putting border-style: hidden; on the table itself, it means that “hidden” wins on that outside edge, but only the outside edge, not any of the other borders on the inside cells.

See the Pen Inside Border on Table #3 by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier) on CodePen.

Can you think of other ways?

A Table With Borders Only On The Inside is a post from CSS-Tricks