Tables

The latest Web standards make a clean split between function and format. You are supposed to use XHTML for functional descriptions (only) of Web page elements and to use Cascading Style Sheets for stylistic (fomatting) descriptions. But this idea is weakly and unevenly supported so for now try to use HTML formatting sparingly. Here is a simple table:

It is created with the following HTML:

<table border="border">
<tr> <td>William I </td>  <td>1066-1087</td> </tr>
<tr> <td>William II</td>  <td>1087-1100</td> </tr>
<tr> <td>Henry I   </td>  <td>1100-1135</td> </tr>
<tr> <td>Stephen   </td>  <td>1135-1154</td> </tr>
</table>

A table has one or more rows. Each row contains one or more table data items or table heading items. Usually there is an equal number of items in each row (there are ways around this limitation.)

1. A table is bracketed with the tags <table> and </table>.
2. If you want lines to separate the cells of the table, use the border="border" attribute.
3. The table rows are put between the table tags
4. Each row is bracketed with the tags <tr> and </tr>.
5. Between the <tr> tags are one or more table data items.
6. Each item of table data is bracketed with the tags <td> and </td>.
7. Between the table data tags is where you put the text you wish to display.
8. Each table heading item is bracketed with the tags <th> and </th>.