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Using Tables to control the appearence
of a web page

Tables can be useful to create pages with a menu without frames like the ones we use throughout our site.Here we'll show you how to do this using this page as an example (although it is based on our pre November 2002 site it perhaps more easily illustrates the concept). We've added in all brders to let you see how we do it.

We've begun by creating a 1x1 table. This contols the total width of our page (width is set at 600pixels) so that the layout is control no matter what resolution of screen views the page. A border can also be used if you wish to define your pages area. We also hang our background image in this table. You don't need to do this but it can be useful if you want to have objects like a logo or menu barr that won't fit in the main table.

Into this we have put our logo and then beneath it another table. Normally the border would be tured off but we've kept it on to illustrate the layout. We use a 3x1 table but we could simply use a 2 X 1 table.

With a 2X1 table one column will be the menu, the other the main text area

In our case we include a thin gutter cell to seperate out the 2 other cells

If your not using a 1X1 table first, set the table size as described previously to control the overall layout (best done in pixel e.g. 600). Then specify the size of each of the cells (e.g. 25 and 75 percent or 150 and 450 in terms of pixels).

If you want you can set the backgrounds of each cell to different colours (and or add border).

For the bulk of our menu pages we use a 3X1 table with a thin 20 pixel wide gutter cell between the menu and the main area. The total table width is set at 590 pixels and the menu bar's cell is set at a width of 130 pixels with the main text set at 440 pixels. This gives us good control and order to our pages.

Tables can give a consistent feel to a site when employed

Many other pages on this site use more tables. For example our Home page is also made up of a series of tables.

Either click Back or....

HTML tables
Composer tables
Frontpage express tables

 

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