RE: Use of Tables

["Al Geist" <al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com>]

Chris McQueen wrote:

I've noticed that people quickly agree that CSS is the way to move away from
a table-based website.  But, the other half of the equation is the <div> and
<span> tag (and a few others, of course).  There are plenty of resources
that will tell you how they work, but in short they give you the control you
look for with tables when positioning elements.
Just a move to CSS alone, if you try to style and position a site setup with
tables and <p> tags, will not help your design or usability for screen
readers.


Absolutely right.  Just as tables alone are not the answer to layout
problems (tabular data or creative designs). You need to understand HTML and
have a good grasp of what you intend to do. CSS will help you bring
conformity to multiple page websites and help make changes across the site,
but it won't make your pages pretty or usable unless you know how to apply
it properly. (I'm still learning the latter.)

You can create a simple CSS file that handles all the fonts on your website
or move on to more complicated and powerful CSS that control fonts along
with layout (including setting column widths), forms, output (screen or
print)...  Best of all, because CSS files are text files, they work on
virtually every browser (although earlier versions of Netscape and IE up to
version 6 have problems).  "CSS: The Missing Manual" has some great
workarounds for IE5-6 problems, and explains some of the limitations of
Netscape, Firefox and Opera.

Al

Al Geist
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Videos
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See also:
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office and beautiful note cards for all occasions.)



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