Confluence 6.13.4

To build off of David May's post. We had to target a specific class and not just the table:

<style>
.jira-macro-table-underline-pdfexport:nth-child(4) {
 max-width: 400px;
 overflow: hidden;
 white-space: wrap;
}
</style>

You can still specify a specific Jira issues macro like David mentioned if you'd like:

#issue-macro-1 .jira-macro-table-underline-pdfexport:nth-child(4) {max-width: 400px;}

Just remember to place the HTML macros around your Jira Issues macro:

<div id="issue-macro-1">

</div>

[We are using Confluence 6.8.1]

Prerequisite: Confluence HTML macro.

You can do all kinds of things with simple css in an HTML macro 

<style>
  div.jira-issues table td { padding: 4px 10px !important; }                // Make rows narrow
  div.jira-issues table th { white-space: nowrap; }                         // Don't let header title wrap
  div.jira-issues table td:not(:last-child) { white-space: nowrap; }        // nowrap for all non-last col
  div.jira-issues table th:last-child { width: 50% !important; }            // Expand last col to fit rest of width
  div.jira-issues table tr.rowAlternate { background: #F3F5F7 !important; } // Zebra stripes
</style>

You would need to add a javascript section to apply specific widths based on the name of the column and that's problematic since the macro load time is delayed and there is not AJS trigger to let you know when a specific Jira Issues macro is fully loaded. However, if you are ok explicitly specifying the columns by number, then you can accomplish it easily with
I'm using !important just so that I win a specificity battle with the confluence/macro-native css definitions. It may not be necessary.

<style>
 div.jira-issues table th:nth-child(1) { width: 10%; } 
 div.jira-issues table th:nth-child(2) { width: 200px; } 
 div.jira-issues table th:nth-child(3) { width: 30%; } 
</style>

If you need to have different once for different Jira macros, then you'll need to put HTML macros above and below each Jira issue macro with <div id="issue-macro-1"> and </div> then prefix the above lines in the <script> with #issue-macro-1. e.g., 

#issue-macro-1 div.jira-issues table th:nth-child(1) { width: 50%; }

issue-macro-1 can be any string you want and you can have as many different ones as you like.

What can be done for people using the older version? I still have this need.

Given that we've switched to use static rendering mode as default and enhance PDF export rendering (table auto scaling) in the current version of JIRA macros, I would like to resolve this ticket as obsolete. However, feel free to add a comment if you don't think it's the case.

pavel.smirnov@ammeon.com, flyinknut, dzimmerman Could you please share your specific case to let me understand why you want to pass column width? It could be helpful if it also includes some screenshot as well.
So far I found that participants wants this functionality because they hit problem with "nowrap attribute set for key and the custom field" which causes custom column render huge and extends off the page.

Here's a use case - http://i.imgur.com/UYoVSCF.png

We do not give our clients access to JIRA, but we give them access to Confluence to share/comment/etc. We need to be able to share all current work and backlog work - which is entered in JIRA.

So this as an example screen is AWFUL to be our communication to the client

I'd love to be able to put totals on there as well, resize columns, change column headings to sensible wording, colours to columns, all sorts!

Would like to see this feature implemented. Would be very useful.

Would love to see this implemented as well.

Yes. We use it on large customers project to demonstrate the power of tools
in using actionable data inside confluence managed documentation. Jira
issues macro is the masterpiece at the core. Display inside documentation is
valuable. There are different ways to achieve this, eg css and only small
changes maybe needed eg classing of jiraissues columns from column names.
Then width can be taken in css.
On 27 Sep 2011 04:27, "Bill Arconati [Atlassian] (Commented) (JIRA)" <
http://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-23286?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=270651#comment-270651]
specific use case behind this feature request?
grid display and also into the PDF Exporter.
administrators:
http://jira.atlassian.com/secure/ContactAdministrators!default.jspa

This isn't likely to get implemented in the next 12 months. Is there a specific use case behind this feature request?