Day 8: formatting HTML with tables

In old-school HTML, our only tool for controlling layout on the screen was to use rectangular tables and tables within tables. The method is crude and cumbersome, but effective. Some work with tables will make you salivate when we get to stylesheets, next meeting.

To see today's handout, click here.

References in the book:

• Chapter 3 generally


• simple examples, beginning page 83




• table, tr, td tags


• align, border, bordercolor attributes


• cellspacing, cellpadding attributes


• bgcolor attribute


• colspan, rowspan attribute

On pages 97, 100, and 110 you can see some sample formats. Look at some of your favorite webpages for rectangular tables.

Assignment for today: Make four (4!) webpages. Use the drawings on the handout for models. Fill the cells of the table with pleasing colors, chosen from combinations that you find using the color chooser. When you have finished all four, show them to me.