How do you specify table padding in CSS? ( table, not cell padding )

The easiest/best supported method is to use <table cellspacing="10">

The css way: border-spacing (not supported by IE I don't think)

    <!-- works in firefox, opera, safari, chrome -->
    <style type="text/css">
    
    table.foobar {
    	border: solid black 1px;
    	border-spacing: 10px;
    }
    table.foobar td {
    	border: solid black 1px;
    }
    
    
    </style>
    
    <table class="foobar" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
    <tr><td>foo</td><td>bar</td></tr>
    </table>

Edit: if you just want to pad the cell content, and not space them you can simply use

<table cellpadding="10">

OR

td {
    padding: 10px;
}

You can't... Maybe if you posted a picture of the desired effect there's another way to achieve it.

For example, you can wrap the entire table in a DIV and set the padding to the div.

You could set a margin for the table. Alternatively, wrap the table in a div and use the div's padding.

Here's the thing you should understand about tables... They're not a tree of nested independent elements. They're a single compound element. While the individual TDs behave more or less like CSS block elements, the intermediate stuff (anything between the TABLE and TD, including TRs and TBODYs) is indivisible and doesn't fall into either inline nor block. No random HTML elements are allowed in that other-dimensional space, and the size of such other-dimensional space isn't configurable at all through CSS. Only the HTML cellspacing property can even get at it, and that property has no analog in CSS.

So, to solve your problem, I'd suggest either a DIV wrapper as another poster suggests, or if you absolutely must keep it contained in the table, you have this ugly junk:

<style>
    .padded tr.first td { padding-top:10px; }
    .padded tr.last td { padding-bottom:10px; }
    .padded td.first { padding-left:10px; }
    .padded td.last { padding-right:10px; }
</style>

<table class='padded'>
    <tr class='first'>
        <td class='first'>a</td><td>b</td><td class='last'>c</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td class='first'>d</td><td>e</td><td class='last'>f</td>
    </tr>
    <tr class='last'>
        <td class='first'>g</td><td>h</td><td class='last'>i</td>
    </tr>
</table>