<style>
tbody td span {display: inline-block;
width: 10em; /* this is the nuisance part, as you'll have to define a particular width, and I assume -without testing- that any percent widths would be relative to the containing `<td>`, not the `<tr>` or `<table>` */
overflow: hidden;
white-space: nowrap; }
</style>
...
<table>
<thead>...</thead>
<tfoot>...</tfoot>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><span title="some text">some text</span></td> <td><span title="some more text">some more text</span></td> <td><span title="yet more text">yet more text</span></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<style type="text/css">
<!--
td { vertical-align: top; }
.leftcolumn { background: #CCC; width: 20%; padding: 10px; }
.centercolumn { background: #999; padding: 10px; width: 15%; }
.rightcolumn { background: #666; padding: 10px; }
-->
</style>
</head>
<body>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td class="leftcolumn">This is the left column. It is set to 20% width.</td>
<td class="centercolumn">
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I want to wrap a text that is added to the TD. I have tried with style="word-wrap: break-word;" width="15%". But the wrap is not happening. Is it mandatory to give 100% width ? But I have got other controls to display so only 15% width available.</p>
<p>Need help.</p>
<p>TIA.</p>
</td>
<td class="rightcolumn">This is the right column, it has no width so it assumes the remainder from the 15% and 20% assumed by the others. By default, if a width is applied and no white-space declarations are made, your text will automatically wrap.</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
table, th, td {
border: 1px solid black;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<table>
<tr>
<th>Poem</th>
<th>Poem</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td nowrap>Never increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything</td>
<td>Never increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>The nowrap attribute is not supported in HTML5. Use CSS instead.</p>
</body>
</html>