LESSON 6

Tables
Using TABLES in your page layout has several key advantages:

Basically, TABLES are all about control.

Boxes Inside of Boxes
It is probably easier to think of a TABLE as a flat, two dimensional box. Inside of this box, you can place other boxes, or CELLS, and inside of these boxes, you put text, images, or even more boxes. This is a very simple table that contains four cells:

The TABLE CELL, or <TD> is the basic unit of a cell. You can have as many or as few cells in your table as you wish. A horizontal row of cells is called a TABLE ROW or <TR>. CELLS go into ROWS.

In the example above, Cell 1 and Cell 2 form one table row, and cells 3 and 4 form another table row. Always remember that cells go into rows, and rows go into a table.

Here is what the HTML for a table looks like:

<TABLE>
     <TR>
        <TD>Your Data </TD>
      </TR>
</TABLE>

Notice how the opening and closing <TD> tags are nested inside of the <TR> tags, and likewise, the <TR> tags are nested inside the <TABLE> tags.

Here's the HTML for a more complicated table:
<TABLE>
     <TR>
          <TD> Your Data </TD>
          <TD> Your Data </TD>
     </TR>
     <TR>
          <TD> Your Data </TD>
          <TD> Your Data </TD>
     </TR>
</TABLE>

This example depicts a table with two Table Rows - each row containing two Cells - resulting in a four cell table.

More Attributes
You can position your text or image inside of the table cell itself by using the <ALIGN> and <VALIGN> attributes inside the <TD> tag.

NOTE: Use only one <ALIGN> and one <VALIGN> attribute per table cell.

Using your attributes like this would place your text in the upper left hand corner of your cell:
<TD ALIGN=left VALIGN=top>