<style type="text/css">
    #one td {
        border: 1px solid #ff0000; 
    }
</style>

<table>
    <tr id="one">
        <td></td>
        <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr id="two">
        <td></td>
        <td></td>
    </tr>
</table>

http://jsfiddle.net/VCA9Q/

No can do, ime, even though css spec ( http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/box.html#border-properties ) plainly says border and border-color can be applied to "all elements". Though it might be because <table> might not fall under the box model; I'm not sure about this.

In any case, it's a counter-intuitive, crazy-seeming, page-bloat-inducing pita.

There must be better solutions than bordering every single table cell, which is what I end up doing.

-- pete

You've got a outset style, that's default in buttons (inset in inputs for example). If you need a solid border add this:

 border-style: solid;

You can view it:

.btnstyle2{
    height: 28px;
    text-align: center;
    background-color: #F8F8F8;
    border-radius: 3px;
    border-color: #E8E8E8;
    border-style:solid;
}

<button type="button" class="btnstyle2">Dismiss</button>