Many websites that currently exist on the Internet use tables in order to control the layout and presentation of a web page. However websites that use tables to control layout and presentation are often inaccessible to blind users using screen readers, as screen readers have great difficult interpreting layout tables. It is recommended that tables not be used to control the layout and presentation of a page. The accessible websites that meet the WCAG 1.0 standard use Cascading Style Sheets to control the presentation and layout of their pages. For more information about Cascading Style Sheets can be found on the Cascading Style Sheets page.
It is possible that a screen reader may be able to successfully interpret a table’s page. In order for the screen reader to interpret the page correctly a web developer must take great care when designing the web page. If using tables to control the layout and presentation of a page is absolutely necessary then the web developer should take great care when designing the page and should test it thoroughly with several different screen readers to ensure that is accessible to screen readers, (however this is not recommended and would be going against the WCAG 1.0 standard). If it is discovered during testing that it is not accessible to screen readers then the web developer should use Cascading Style Sheets.