Speeding up Table Display
Although tables are extremely powerful, they can be very slow to appear in your visitor’s browser. The major factor is that the browser must calculate the width and height of the table before it can begin to display the cells. So, if you can keep the browser’s calculations to a minimum, the table will appear more quickly and your visitors may actually wait to see it.
To speed up table display:
Keep tables as small as possible. Where you can, divide large tables into smaller ones.
Specify the width of the table in pixels (see page 232).
Use absolute values (in pixels) or percentages for determining cell width.
Only specify proportional widths for cells, columns, and horizontal sections when you’ve already set a fixed width ...
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