5. Using Tables and Layout Tables

The Origin of Tables

If you look back at the origins of HTML, you’ll see a handful of particle physicists formulating a method for displaying scientific and educational data. Much of that information lent itself to being displayed in a tabular format, and out of necessity, HTML tables were born.

Tables are an excellent example of the true purpose of HTML. HTML was designed to be a layout language, and within a few years of the invention of HTML, tables began to play an important role in documents on the Web. As the Web progressed and HTML drifted into the hands of a more diverse collection of web developers, it began to be stretched to limits far outside its original intent.

Twenty years later, web developers ...

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