I have only tested this in IE 6, 7, 8 and FF 3.6.3.
<html>
<head>
<title>testing td checkboxes</title>
<style type="text/css">
tr {
height: 1px;
}
td {
border: 1px solid #000;
height: 100%;
}
label {
display: block;
border: 1px solid #f00;
min-height: 100%; /* for the latest browsers which support min-height */
height: auto !important; /* for newer IE versions */
height: 100%; /* the only height-related attribute that IE6 does not ignore */
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<table>
<tr>
<td>Some column title</td>
<td>Another column title</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Value 1<br>(a bit more info)</td>
<td><label><input type="checkbox" /> </label></td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
The main trick here is to define the height of the rows so we can use a 100% height on their children (the cells) and in turns, a 100% height on the cells’ children (the labels). This way, no matter how much content there is in a cell, it will forcibly expand its parent row, and its sibling cells will follow. Since the label has a 100% height of its parent which has its height defined, it will also expand vertically.
The second and last trick (but just as important) is to use a CSS hack for the min-height attribute, as explained in the comments.