Page Layout with CSS

There are problems with using tables to lay out your web page, and web developer DC is more than happy to lay them out and provide an alternative. “Using tables to lay out a page can allow very complex designs (with very complex markup); it does not mean that the user need be aware that that is what he is looking at (although there have been sites built with tables which had visible, thick borders — very ugly, very 1997). Turning off the table borders (<table border=”0″>) allows the designer to build layouts as complicated as he might wish while the user sees (hopefully) a clean page without a hint of the skeleton holding it together.

There are, though, problems with using tables to control layout. The first problem is that it goes against the entire concept of the way HTML is supposed to work. I know, I know — I’ve said this before (and before, and before… ). It bears repeating, however: HTML is supposed to define the structure of a web page — this is a heading, this is a paragraph and so on. It is not supposed to, and not designed to, define the appearance of a web page.

Having said that, for quite some time there was literally nothing else a web designer could use but HTML, so it is understandable that anyone building a web page would grab with both hands whatever was available to lay out a page — <font> tags, the single-pixel GIF trick and using tables for layout being among the most widely used and abused.

The table element was never intended to be used for laying out a page. To state the obvious: the table element is for the tabular presentation of information. That is its sole legitimate function.”

Read the full article at the author’s personal web page and learn how to lay out your pages without using tables.