Using Tables: Lesson 1 - The Basics
So far, we have been looking at how to design a Web page using HTML
tags - all of which probably seem fairly primitive compared to a DTP package
or even a word processor. You have little control over where elements
are placed, and those which you can control seem to require a considerable
amount of work.
One means of adding extra flexibility to your Web pages is to use tables.
The obvious use for these is to display tabulated information, where you
want to include a series of pieces of information. However, tables can
be used for much more than this, and the ability to place text, images,
hyperlinks and even forms into a table cell means that they can be used
for more advanced DTP effects on your Web page.
Why Use Tables?
As we've already mentioned, tables can be used to arrange information
in columns and rows, but the best use of them is for DTP effects. As you
can include different components - hypermedia, text, links and so on -
you can create quite complex interactive pages. Furthermore, as you can
use borders (invisible or visible) around each cell, and don't have to
fill up every cell, you can really go to town on setting out a page by
forcing HTML to position elements where you want them.What's more, as
you don't have to use gridlines, your audience need never know that you
are using tables.
First Steps
The first steps for using a table are the <TABLE></TABLE>
tags surrounding everything that you want to include in your table.
Within the table, rows are flagged by <TR></TR> tags (for
table row) and <TD></TD>. It is quite easy to become confused
when creating a table, but the most important tags are these three: remember
that you need to include TD tags within TR ones, that is you create as
many cells within each row as you require.
For the following exercises, you will need to download the images used
in the hypermedia lesson. Create a directory
or folder named tables and another directory within it called images where
you will save the images.
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