Lock table cells to their default size regardless of content

Answer 1

You could try to pick a single cell to chew up all the space and set that to 100% height and width:

    

        
Hi There.
        
x
    
    

        
Here is some text.
        

    

and some CSS:

table {
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
}
td {
    white-space: nowrap;
}
td.space-hog {
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
}

And a live example. You need to be careful to avoid unpleasant line wrapping when .space-hog does its thing, hence the white-space: nowrap. If you put the .space-hog in the last row then you can avoid pushing the interesting parts down.