HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, 6th Edition

The Standard Table Model

The standard model for tables is fairly straightforward: a table is a collection of numbers and words arranged in rows and columns of cells. Most cells contain the data values; others contain row and column headers that describe the data.

You define a table and include all of its elements between the <table> tag and its corresponding </table> end tag. Table elements, including data items, row and column headers, and captions, each have their own markup tags. Working from left to right and top to bottom, you define, in sequence, the header and data for each column cell across and down the table.

The latest standards also provide a rich collection of tag attributes, many of which once were popular extensions to HTML as supported by the popular browsers. They make your tables look good, by enabling special alignment of the table values and headers, borders, table rule lines, and automatic sizing of the data cells to accommodate their content, among other capabilities. The various popular browsers have slightly different sets of table attributes; we’ll point out those variations as we go.

Table Contents

You can put nearly anything you might have within the body of an HTML or XHTML document inside a table cell, including images, forms, rules, headings, and even another table. The browser treats each cell as a window unto itself, flowing the cell’s content to fill the space, but with some special formatting provisions and extensions.

An Example Table

Here’s a quick ...