About Tables
All about Tables
Tips on Tables
Use Fixed Tables for Faster Rendering
All about Tables:
Tables are made up of rows and columns of cells that can contain anything you might put on a page, such as text, images, forms ActiveX controls or FrontPage components. You can use tables to arrange data systematically or to organise the layout of a page. A table allows you to display text in side-by-side paragraphs or arrange text next to graphics. Use a table to simulate columns of text, or use a fixed-pixel-width column to provide a margin for text on a page.
You can create a table quickly with the Draw Table command, which lets you define a table just by drawing the borders of the table, columns, and rows. After you create a table, you can customise it by adding rows and columns, changing the size of cells, and adding a caption. You can also convert existing text to a table and vice-versa.
When you type text in a cell or insert text, images, forms and so on, the cell expands horizontally and vertically to accommodate the elements that are typed or inserted. You can edit, format, and specify properties for the text or inserted element, as well as for the table cell, row, column, or table itself. You can easily resize cells, columns, rows, or the entire table by dragging borders.
Tips on Tables:
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When you have two tables butted together vertically, it can be hard to insert a line between them. To do so, place the cursor after the content of the top table's last cell and press [Ctrl][Enter].
Similarly, to put the insertion point before a table at the top of your document, place the cursor before the content of the first cell and press [Ctrl][Enter].
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When using Pixels to set a table width, always stay smaller than 640 pixels. The minimum default screen width that most people have is 640 pixels wide. If you use larger tables, some visitors to your Web site might have to scroll off to the right to see the complete table. Also be aware that visitors browsing you web site with a web TV have a screen width of only 540 pixels.
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If you accidentally make a mistake and delete the wrong row or column, choose Edit, Undo Clear from the FrontPage menu bar, and your mistake is rectified.
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Want to delete the entire table instead of a single row or column? Click in any cell of the table and choose Table, Select Table from the menu bar, then press the Delete key on your keyboard.
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Do you want to emulate a newspaper and make your web page have multiple columns of information? Easy, just set up a table with only one row but with two or three columns. Within the table, set Cell Padding to be 5 to 10 and the borders to be 0. Then you can type all the way down each column within the table, but the information stays in the same cell.
- Would you like to place four separate images within different cells in a table but make it appear as if they are one single image? Easy, first set your Cell Padding and Cell spacing properties to be 0, so there is no extra empty space within the various cells of your table. Then set the Horizontal and Vertical Alignment of your four individual cells to the following:
| Column 1 | Column 2 | |
| Row 1 | Right, Bottom | Left, Bottom |
| Row 2 | Right, Top | Left, Top |
Use Fixed Tables for Faster Rendering:
The first way to increase download speed is to use the CSS2 fixed-layout property on all of your tables. The fixed-layout property allows the browser to start drawing your tables right away, rather than calculating the size first and then rendering. You can add this tag without affecting any older browsers (including Netscape Navigator, WebTV, and others).
<TABLE STYLE="table-layout:fixed">
. . .
</TABLE
