Dreamweaver CS5: The Missing Manual

Expanded Table Mode

If you remove all padding, cell spacing, and borders from a table, you may find it difficult to select tables and individual cells. This phenomenon is especially true if you nest tables within table cells (a common table-layout technique). To help you out, Dreamweaver offers an Expanded Table mode. Clicking the Expanded button on the Layout category of the Insert panel adds visible borders to every table and cell, and increases onscreen cell padding. (Choosing View→Table Mode→Expanded Tables does the same thing.) Expanded Table mode never changes the actual page code; it merely affects how the page looks in Design view. The guideline borders and extra spacing don’t appear in a web browser.

If you simply use tables to display data, you’ll probably never need Expanded Table mode, but if you have to edit old web pages built with complicated table layouts, Expanded mode is a big help.

To return to Standard view, click the Standard button on the Layout category of the Insert panel, or choose View→Table Mode→Standard Mode. You can also click the Exit link that appears in the blue toolbar above the document window (this toolbar appears only when you’re in Expanded Table mode.)