Sams Teach Yourself HTML 4 in 24 Hours

By Dick Oliver

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Author
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Put Your HTML Page Online Today
  • I. Your First Web Page
  • Hour 1. Understanding HTML and XML
  • Hour 2. Create a Web Page Right Now
  • Hour 3. Linking to Other Web Pages
  • Hour 4. Publishing Your HTML Pages
  • II. Web Page Text
  • Hour 5. Text Alignment and Lists
  • Hour 6. Text Formatting and Font Control
  • Hour 7. Email Links and Links Within a Page
  • Hour 8. Creating HTML Forms
  • III. Web Page Graphics
  • Hour 9. Creating Your Own Web Page Graphics
  • Hour 10. Putting Graphics on a Web Page
  • Hour 11. Custom Backgrounds and Colors
  • Hour 12. Creating Animated Graphics
  • IV. Web Page Design
  • Hour 13. Page Design and Layout
  • Hour 14. Graphical Links and Imagemaps
  • Hour 15. Advanced Layout with Tables
    • Creating a Simple Table
    • Table Size
    • Alignment and Spanning
    • Backgrounds and Spacing
    • Creative Page Layout with Tables
    • Summary
    • Q&A
    • Workshop
  • Hour 16. Using Style Sheets
  • V. Dynamic Web Pages
  • Hour 17. Embedding Multimedia in Web Pages
  • Hour 18. Interactive Pages with Applets and ActiveX
  • Hour 19. Web Page Scripting for Non-Programmers
  • Hour 20. Setting Pages in Motion with Dynamic HTML
  • VI. Building a Web Site
  • Hour 21. Multipage Layout with Frames
  • Hour 22. Organizing and Managing a Web Site
  • Hour 23. Helping People Find Your Web Pages
  • Hour 24. Planning for the Future of HTML
  • VII. Appendixes
  • A. Readers' Most Frequently Asked Questions
  • B. HTML Learning Resources on the Internet
  • C. Complete HTML 4 Quick Reference
  • D. HTML Character Entities

Creative Page Layout with Tables

The boring, conventional way to use tables is for tabular arrangements of text and numbers. The real fun begins when you make the borders of your tables invisible and use them as guides for arranging graphics and columns of text any way you please. For an example, take a look at Figures 15.5 and 15.6.

Figure 15.5 Use tables whenever you want multiple columns of text or wide margins.

Figure 15.6 HTML tables give you greater flexibility and control when laying out your Web pages.

While I worked on building this table, I left the borders visible so I could make sure everything was placed the way I wanted. Then, before incorporating this table into the final Web page, I removed the border="1" attribute from the <table> tag to make the lines invisible.

I used two different tables in Figures 15.5 and 15.6. The top one allowed me to arrange the images and text into four columns. The bottom one let me confine the text to the middle 400 pixels of the screen, essentially giving me extra-wide margins. Remember both of these applications—you'll probably find uses for them often!

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