Understanding Table Basics

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A table is a grid that uses rows and columns to form cells — the intersection of a row and column. The table expands to hold content, and certain rules guide that expansion. You can set a fixed, specific width in pixels, or use a relative, percentage-based width that expands or collapses with the width of the HTML document in the browser window.

A typical table uses the <table><tr> and <td> tags, sometimes incorporating the <th> to indicate a table heading cell. Each tag has its own properties, controlled in Dreamweaver MX through the contextual Property inspector. Browsers, notably Netscape 4x, have specific requirements for rendering a table, and the property values you supply to the browser may or may not display consistently between different versions and on different platforms. Learning to build cross-platform, cross-browser tables is the key to developing complex page layouts.

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