CREATING AND EDITING TABLES

Tables are widely used these days to format and control the layout of web pages. If you're going to use tables as a layout tool for your web pages, you'd be best served to learn how to use the layout grid to create these tables (refer to "Using the Layout Grid," earlier in this chapter). You can, however, still use the Table object in the Basic Objects palette to create inline tables:

1.	Drag the Table object from the Basic Objects palette onto your page or double-click the Table object to add a 3 by 3 table to your page, as shown in Figure 35.37. Figure 35.37. Insert a new blank table on your page.
2.	With the table selected, indicate the number of columns and rows in your table, as well as the width and height of the overall table using the Table Inspector. You can also indicate whether the table has a border, background image, caption, or background color, as shown in Figure 35.38. Figure 35.38. Specify the basic setup of your table in the Table Inspector. You can import table data from a delimited text file by clicking the Import button at the bottom of the Table Inspector. You can likewise export table data to a delimited text file using the Export button in the same place.
3.	Type the data for your table directly into the table cells. Use the HTML text formatting options under the Type menu or format your table data using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
4.	Click and drag the table and cell walls to resize your table. You can indicate the individual cell and row attributes using the Cell and Row tabs of the Table Inspector.

GoLive enables you to create your web pages using any of a variety of methods. The method you choose for your pages is based largely on the look you're trying to achieve and also based on the users you're trying to reach. A good rule of thumb, especially if you're trying to build pages for a very broad range of visitors, is to keep it simple. Always consider your potential audience and consider whether your site is primarily providing information or entertaining users with all the latest bells and whistles. Always test your website and web pages on as many browsers as you can and on as many computer platforms as you can.

If you have existing web pages that were created using tables and you want to use GoLive's layout grid to edit them, select the table and click the Convert button at the bottom of the Table Inspector.