Answer by Robert White for Set cellpadding and cellspacing in CSS?

Wrap the contents of the cell with a div and you can do anything you want, but you have to wrap every cell in a column to get a uniform effect. For example, to just get wider left & right margins:

So the CSS will be,

div.cellwidener {
  margin: 0px 15px 0px 15px;
}
td.tight {
  padding: 0px;
}

<table border="0">
  <tr>
    <td class="tight">
      <div class="cellwidener">My content</div>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>

Yes, it's a hassle. Yes, it works with Internet Explorer. In fact, I've only tested this with Internet Explorer, because that's all we're allowed to use at work.