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Why tables?

Tables allow control over the layout of the pages. Without tables, text and graphics are essentially poured onto the user's screen, with the actual layout of pages depending entirely on the width and height of the browser window. Issues such as legibility, readability, and style are rely on the ability to position words, images, and screen elements on the "page" in a way that adheres to established typographic conventions. Because of the limitations of HTML, the only layout tool for site designers at this time is tables.

Tables for layout web pages

Normally the length of text line on a page is determined by the dimensions of the viewer's browser window. When the user resizes their window, the text reflows to fill the new space. To avoid this use tables to define the areas of pages. Use table cells to create margins, put text in table cells to limit the line length (ideally 10 to 12 words on a line), and use cells to position elements on the page.

Cell features and table features

1. The behavior of a table depends largely on how its cells are defined. For the purposes of page layout should define cell widths with absolute values.
2. The cell should contain a single-pixel GIF equal to the width of the cell to make sure that the table dimensions do not change when the browser window is resized.
3. Basically tables are using to get around the limitations of HTML and ways in which they were not intended. Invisible tables whose sole purpose is to give control over page elements, Thus be sure to set BORDER="0".
4. If in the context of tabular materials, it is much cleaner to use spacing, alignment, and indents to delimit tabular information.

Use of tables

1. Tables can use to take a composite image and split it into pieces, and then re-combine it in the cells of table. This is useful for creating wrap-around effects or image captions.
2. Tables can use as below to combine different text alignment specifications.