Comments on: Why not tables? Is CSS really better?

By: Joe Dolson

Joe Dolson — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:00:25 +0000

Hi, Bruce - Thanks for your comments! The main reason that tables are frowned upon is because, if not used correctly, they can cause significant problems for users of screen readers and other linearized content devices. As far as web browser support goes, I think it’s unlikely that future browsers will cause any significant problems with the rendering of your designs.

With both tables and CSS layouts, the biggest problem is with poorly implemented usage; not an inherent failure in either system.

By: Bruce C

Bruce C — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 01:00:11 +0000

It is amazing that this blog post was written 3 years ago and we are still comment. Great blog post, Joe.

I have designed over 300 websites for 15 years and when tables came to the rescue for layout, we are very lucky. CSS was not available yet. My problem was that I became so used to designing with tables, that CSS layout was very difficult to master and the cross browser issues with CSS just made even harder and more frustrating. With table layout, you simply do not have the cross browser challenge and it still seems like an easy way to design websites.

I still do not understand why tables are so frowned upon even when I read lots of web pages on why tables are the devil and so far, none of my table layouts have broken in any web browser yet.

I am open to opinions, but I have been forcing myself to use CSS layout and am finally getting the hang of it, although I always feel like going back to laying out my web pages with tables. I have not designed a website with tables in about 10 websites.

My only question is that if tables have not yet broken my layouts, will they in future releases of Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc?

By: J.Caron

J.Caron — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 09:01:08 +0000

Hello Paul,

On Dreamweaver, you can convert Tables to Divs and vice-versa going to “Modify -> Convert”

Excelent article by the way.

Cheers

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 12:18:03 +0000

I appreciate the article as well! I am new to web design, and am using an old version of Dreamweaver 8. I don’t know how to hand code yet, but I wish there were a way to “draw” a table with cells, and then convert it automatically to CSS. I know it’s lazy, but I will never be a professional, but would like to have a standards based web site.

By: Joe Dolson

Joe Dolson — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:32:04 +0000

@Kevin It’s very clear that there are reasons that organizations use tables for layouts. They do provide some capabilities not readily available in other ways, and make other issues easier — semantically, however, they are still incorrect.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 01:13:45 +0000

I apologize. Target is all CSS. It was another retailer.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:56:49 +0000

I really appreciate this article. As someone relatively new to designing web sites, I learn by studying the code behind the sites I like. More often than not, I will come across a site and ask myself, how in the world did they lay all that out with CSS? And more often than not, it is not laid out with CSS, it is tables.

I want to note it is not just a few sites that still use tables, there almost seems to be a growing number.

I keep hearing that tables are the Devil, but honestly, it seems to be a fairly efficient way to structure and lay out a site with a lot of images and competing content. This was just confirmed today when I saw Target’s site and wondered how they laid out the site and again it was with tables.

If people are still dancing with the Devil, there must be a reason.

By: Nashville

Nashville — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:53:14 +0000

“For questions having to do with ranking on Google, that’s a good place to go. However, this issue really doesn’t have anything to do with ranking — it has to do with information processing. Google talked about it in a blog post: using named anchors.”

Excellent and very timely. Thanks so much.

By: Joe Dolson

Joe Dolson — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:12:04 +0000

For questions having to do with ranking on Google, that’s a good place to go. However, this issue really doesn’t have anything to do with ranking — it has to do with information processing. Google talked about it in a blog post: using named anchors.

They aren’t specifically using headers; but headers are the best way of delineating the anchored sections of a page discussed in the Google blog post for many reasons.

By: Nashville

Nashville — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:12:45 +0000

Thanks for your answer, and thanks for the information on this page. It is very helpful.

You said, “Already, Google is making use of page headers with internal anchors to provide quick access to information..” I wonder if you could point me to the source of this info? I tend to send folks who have questions on Google page ranking to http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769#3. I’m not seeing anything in there regarding page headers or anchor tags. Is there a better source for this info?