Do you need to use tables?  Or not?

First of all, you definitely need something to organize your page - be it Tables or Cascading Styles Sheets (CSS).   Just doing straight typing and inserting images on your pages can sometimes result in some odd-looking pages when viewed in different browsers and resolutions because if you don't tell a browser how to display it, it just does what fits best.  Using tables or CSS helps you to organize your information on the page and make it appear the way you want without things moving around based on what type of browser or resolution your visitor has.

Check out these arguments for/against tables and CSS:

• Some places on the internet talk about using tables as "old" standards - that you should use CSS instead.
• However, there are also some older browsers that don't run CSS correctly and you definitely want to have every possible visitor to your site. 
• On the other hand, you can also "place" things on your page more accurately with CSS. 
• Although some individuals who've tried CSS say that you can't do "everything" in CSS and so they've dropped it and moved back to tables.
• But one of the really neat things with CSS is that if it's set up correctly you can change the setup of every page on your site by changing the CSS file.

As you can tell, there are two schools of thought on tables vs CSS.  I use tables on my site because I already knew how to make them in Word and it's almost the same in FrontPage, so I didn't have to find time to learn how to use CSS.  In addition, I didn't really know hardly anything about CSS when I started developing my site several years ago.  Would I use tables or Cascading Styles Sheets (CSS) if I was developing my site now?  I don't know.

Which you choose is up to you.  If you decide to try tables, read on.

At the bottom of the page are some excellent links to information on tables.  Pat's is an excellent site for table basics if you want to create your own.  Also, the link for Nested tables is good - putting tables inside tables.  But all those below are good sites for information on tables.

FYI - This page is designed with nested tables.

If you're designing a table in HTML view and want just a single table, try using the AHFB2000 Table-maker or the Web-Page Tools Table-maker tool.  The AHFB site referenced here claims to make tables that are compliant with all browsers.  You enter in either site the information about your table and they create the code for you to copy and use.

• how many rows (vertically)
• how many columns (horizontally)
• if you want a border and how thick (zero = no border; higher number is thicker border)
• table alignment (left, right, or center on page if screen is larger than table)
• table width (how wide on the page - up to 100%) - I usually recommend 90 or 95%
• choose a background color
• cell padding and cell spacing - 2 is kind of the standard
• cell alignment - do you want the text to be left, right or center horizontally in the cells
• cell valign - do you want the text to be top, middle or bottom of the cell

Click "Create" or "Generate" table and it creates the code.  You can then preview the table to make sure it's what you want.  The tool gives you the HTML code to create the table. Copy and paste the code into your HTML where you want it and it's ready to use. 

NOTE:  FrontPage users, any time you copy and paste HTML code, first paste it into Notepad to strip it and then copy out of Notepad onto your HTML tab.  Otherwise the code will convert into something different.

The above is the "easy" way to get table code, but it may not work best for you.  In the links below are much more information on creating tables from scratch.