CSS or Tables? by Shabda Raaj
What is CSS?
CSS stands for cascading style sheets. They are the new technology used to
layout and style web pages.
So what happened to old, trusty tables?
For long tables were the only tool available to the web developers to layout
their web pages. But with CSS support becoming common, you now have a choice.
Both have their strong and weak points, some more than others as you will soon
see.
The advantages of tables.
1. Tables have been much longer than CSS, so even today it is easier to find
someone who can do a layout in tables. 2. Most of the WYSIWYG editors output
table driven layout. 3. CSS support can be buggy, especially in older browsers.
So your web pages may display differently in different browsers.
The advantages of CSS.
1. Tables were never designed for layout. So you can get only limited control
over layout with tables. CSS is designed for layout. With CSS you can get pixel
level control. 2. CSS decouples design from content. So it makes it easier to
enforce a standard look and feel across your website. 3. If later you want to
change your sites style, it can be as easy as changing one import statement and
using external CSS. 4. With nested CSS, pages become large unnecessarily.
Moreover until the whole tables is downloaded no part of it can be shown. This
leads to a slow website.
So give me the lowdown on this. Which one is better?
With CSS support becoming common, there is no compelling reason to prefer
tables. With CSS you get much more control and flexibility. So unless you are
unwilling to spend time learning CSS, upgrade to CSS. Today!
About the Author
<a href="http://shabda123.blogspot.com/"Shabda Raaj is a free lance web
designer and an avid blogger. His <a
href="http://free-tutorials.blogspot.com/"web design tutorials can be found
here..
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