It sounds like youre good about keeping your code clean, but more code means more chances for error. So, if thats the structure it uses the same amount of code. Then I format the text in CSS adding padding and margins where needed. Of course see load times above which now seem to be one signal Google looks at. Home / Blog / CSS / CSS vs Tables: The Debate That Wont Die. To me, its the most pleasing layout shape. By using our site, you Hi Jennifer. A div-based layout is: easier to maintain less code and less They seem to work quite well for many people who arent you. Even a simple html site can utilize include files for repeating blocks of markup. Dont blame the language. Thanks Kevin. Tables also have distinct dis advantages on mobile devices: You can only squeeze in a small number of columns before the table width causes horizontal scrolling on smaller screens. Your probably right about round pegs and square holes, and I am sorry if you took offence, but the fact that countless people have these issues with css must indicate a lack of continuety with css. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. What Im saying though is the problem isnt css itself. Calling this debate css vs tables is actually inaccurate. The only time I get nosy is if someone did something mind blowing that I want to learn how to do also. And if I gave offense at all as well I also apologize. Ive done that for people before. Every table cell is dependent on the other table cells in its row to maintain the structure. This argument usually includes the time taken to learn to use divs, which isnt a fair comparison. As far as I know Ive never provided 100% of the code to any of the sites youve developed, which would mean the issue isnt necessarily my code. CSS based design is unquestionably superior to table layout, but due to sheer laziness the practice of table design has held on. I really resented (and it sounds like many of you do too) all the time I had to spend to get a site to look as it was intended for ALL users. I dont care what anybody says. It has the power for re-positioning. Ive looked at the page you linked to before and have it bookmarked. I have nothing against using tables. Many people are able to build sites using css as a layout and getting them to work cross-browser including IE without any difficulty. Im thinking something in the way the code was set up is preventing that from happening. My div test page was only 2285 bytes smaller then my table page which would save me 1.74 MB/month of data transfer. This is simply not a point I am willing to debate. In fact your reply only makes it clear you dont know to build sites using divs and css. With CSS, what works with one browser might not always work with another. The border-collapse property sets whether the table borders The same isnt true if youre using divs. Advantages and Disadvantages Determining which extent type to use, depends business requirements and perspective. It totally contradicts the argument that you can completely change the layout with only css, as if youd want to put one item before another. Eric Meyers books are good. The main advantage of CSS is that style is applied consistently across variety of sites. I would have to say,use divs and tables for what they are designed for. Theyre quicker to load which I mentioned above. External style sheets have some tremendous advantages: You can define the style sheet in one document and have all the HTML files refer to the CSS file. So does laying out a site with tables. but i do straight apps, nothing pretty.. data-driven stuff. Right or wrong, I LOVE spending most of my time designing. Tables are like having the blocks bolted together and needing all blocks to be bolted before the structure itself holds together. Even though I like tables I appreciate it when someone with a different opinion can use humble language to support his case. Download a free sample from my book, Design Fundamentals. Tables to me make for a more complicated structure that often create even more problems. It has nothing to do with other tools. Order in a document is semantically relevant to the document to begin with. I dont, however agree that the only way to make things work for IE is tables or even that its easier. The language allows web developers to regulate various style elements and functionalities, like layout, color, fonts, and therefore the formatting and display of HTML documents. Required fields are marked *. By the way I forgot to mention it when I commented on your post, but I did enjoy reading it. CSS (divs) are better for SEO Search engines dont care one bit if the code behind your page uses tables or divs. The flexibility is in your html structure. I hope this will show some good ways to the others. There are SOME layouts that to use entirely CSS requires an inordinate amount of extremely messy code to represent. Now, select the Table tab > click the Options button > uncheck the Automatically Resize to Fit Contents check box. Choosing the right storage format is crucial as it affects your disks Table cells are the only elements in HTML that expand and contract based on adjacent content. Proving that the css layout loads 10ms faster (20ms when I just ran the test on your site) doesnt exactly endorse using tables instead? Hopefully they can point you in the right direction with your own designs. I feel the same about maintain tables-based sites. A few years ago I wrote a post on how to create a 2 column layout with css. Even if we accept the argument that learning to use divs is difficult that doesnt make tables a better approach. Ive never read about this debate until now, however in the back of my mind I always knew someone(s) was debating it. Search engines are interested in your content, not your code.. To remove double borders, take a look at the example below. I dont think anyone is arguing in favor of html attributes. Some might argue that the content search engines see on the page is more important and through divs its easier to present a different order of content to visitors and search engine spiders. Ive been doing web design since the beginning of the internet as a hobby and now professionally and I like a combination of both worlds. To compare we really need to look at sites that are well developed on both sites. Tables seem, at least to me, to be much more intuitive. E.g. Search engines are interested in your content, not your code. There are also dozens of other methods I didnt mention. But I guess when all you have lying around is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail. Wow. I am about to take on a new website project, first one in 8 years. Personally, if I could instantly convert a design into HTML, Id do it. My questions and concerns are genuine and not an effort to get CSS lovers to defend themselves. No matter how many times I see this question or people making an argument on behalf of their opinion, the technical answer remains the same. LOL, Im not advocating tables b/c they are infintesimally slower then divs. WebUsing CSS tableless design will provide your website visitors better usability and accessibility, faster page load times with greater, more elegant design possibilities. I think there are appropriate uses for tables, but I dont think the overall layout of a page is one of those appropriate uses. The fact that different browsers and different versions of browsers look at these and other variables differently is a really pain. CSS changes are device friendly. However my make them spend more time parsing if you dont have. search engines are more friendly. I have designed the following sample homepage for a client: This style will be applied across all web pages and changes will only be made to one line of code. This site uses css and works in IE for example as do many, many others. I mentioned at the start of this post that misinformation spreads on both sides of this debate. With browsers having different defaults paddings, etc. True. Heavy image use and Flash still seem to be the biggest factors in speed. Youre welcome to use them to layout sites if you want. Divs can work independently from each other. Again though you may notice in the post I dont use seo as a reason to use css. If youre not creating HTML e-mails, or unless you have some overriding need to have part of your page scale because of the amount of content on other parts of your page, theres no reason to use tables for layout. I have tried to learn css with online tutoring (lynda.com, http://www.w3schools.com/w3c/w3c_css.asp, etc.) WebDisadvantages of tables. This post isnt a tutorial so I would need to know which one or ones youre referring to as well. With many sites (big, e commerce sites for example) having many different sections of text and images and other media throughout a page the code just grows and grows, taking browsers longer to load page content. There are some new things on the way with css3 too that will make working with divs/css even easier and more flexible. My point about flexibility isnt simply flipping columns. I have no great love for code. I do think there is an advantage for div based techniques for high traffic sites and I will continue to expand my knowledge of div based layouts for this reason. Now that they have indicated that load times will be a ranking factor I would agree that divs make more sense. If you get where Im coming from, please help me understand using logic. I agree that once you master css you can be very powerful with it. The conclusion isnt that it takes a long time to communicate in Spanish. At first its confusing since its such a different approach, but once you make it through the learning curve its obvious that the div/css combination is a much better and more flexible approach to building sites. Once to understand the structure and another time to present it. With equal column heights, yes its easier to create them with tables than with divs alone, though if you look at the last of the 4 methods I described youll see its not hard to create them with divs and css and it still uses less code than using tables. You can definitely hire someone to create a template for the site if you want. You can use css with a table-based layout. Thanks Craig. It was difficult (and very confusing) at the start, but Im now completely clear on why its a better approach. Perhaps this is the reason this debate keeps going on, because this change doesnt look like progress to a lot of people and they feel the benefits dont really outweigh the intuitive design of tables that make design a lot easier for beginners. Graphics are easier in CSS3, thus making it easy to make the site appealing. The rest is a necessary evil to get the design into the medium. I think your comments re flexibility and structure have merit assuming the only tools available are html and css. Believe me, the clean code you talk about it gone. Im not going to tell you that youre doing anything wrong or evil or that the world is going to come to an end. Divs dont require complicated css. CSS instructs the display of the HTML on how the web site will display at the users end. Using css to layout a site is the most difficult part, but it does come together with a little practice. Ive been told I can create any design feasible with CSS, so I have offered the above URLs as examples you can either confirm or be dubious about relative to their successful conversion to CSS from tables. I had my old table based page done in 1/10th the time that Ive spent just trying to find some CSS code that accomplishes what my old header table didand when I started it I knew NOTHING about tables. Ive heard the argument that reduced code helps with SEO, with people saying that too much code makes it harder for Google to parse. If you want to use tables go ahead. Another example of hype at its finest. I promise Im not laughing. Im surprised this debate continues, though admittedly Im continuing it right now after the question was raised on my small business forum. CSS or cascading sheet may be a text-based coding language that specifies the website formats and the way a site communicates with web browsers. I still dont see where Im hyping anything. Again its probably not a huge difference either way at this point. Calm down. You And heres what Im referring to you saying in your post: The problem most people have when learning to use divs is trying to force them to act like tables instead of allowing them to be what they are.. Its usually one or two things that may cause a problem and those problems are easily fixed. Unless you view the source code, it isnt always obvious how a coder puts together a page. If youre constantly having to fix old code though, I would recommend looking into the feasibility of redeveloping the site. While you probably wont appreciate hearing this, the more likely cause for the problems you see is your own knowledge of css. Newspapers have figured out this ideal layout a long time ago, and have thus named their writers columnists. Its now moving on from the CSS methods that replaced tables and using CSS thats being written specifically to lay out sites. Disadvantages of OS Maps (3) Scale needed, instantly out of date, doesn't have seasonal changes. Having used both its very obvious to me that the div based approach is the much better way to go. I thought my question BTW why css layout over table layout' was clear from the context but apparently not. Believe me, Im not making the argument for convoluted nested tables with colspan settings, etc, nor am I arguing against semantically correct documents. Like others have pointed out, fixing display bugs related to just about any css based layout often takes entire release cycles, just to get ruined even more by some other dopy designer. Thats not an apples to apples comparison. Ive worked with both, though certainly more with css sites. In modern times, people usually wait for just a couple of seconds for a website to load. Did you read the post? Who cares, as long as it looks good on all the browsers and search engines are picking it up. Having done programming I understand reusability of code and the ease of making changes in one place for large websites, but this is little good with small sites. @Dave I think were getting squished with the replies to each other so Im starting a new comment. Its true that less code means less potential for show stopping errors, but those show stoppers can exist regardless of your sites structure. Appreciate it and I think this post being more recent is the more relevant one. Im glad your process works for you, but that doesnt change my opinion. You can respectfully disagree, but Im still going to say youre wrong. Just change the template file. Four-fifths of the way through an assessable project isnt the best time to have to redo a table-based layout. The first thing we need to do is sort out the spacing/layout default table styling is so cramped! I support reasonable use of tables for backward compatibility. Also I said speed isnt the main reason for choosing a css layout over a table-based layout. The advantages with using divs are essentially counter to the problems with tables described above. These must all be on the same horizontal line to work, and if one has a word or two text change, only that column will flow properly, and I have to do lots of editing of the other columns. However, I dont think thats the main reason to choose a css layout over a table-based layout. And, then I can see what theyve done with the code as far as CSS goes. Cascading sheet not only simplifies website development, but also simplifies the maintenance as a change of one line of code affects the whole web site and maintenance time. Table cells are dependent on the table, and the rows and other cells in the table. IE and Opera supports CSS as different logic. The person usually chose a complicated path to solving the problem when a much simpler path existed. A table does. I coded up 3 different versions of the same page (divs, tables, tables with table-layout:fixed), and then ran some benchmarks on performance and file sizes. 1. It certainly lags behind other browsers, but for the most part IE fro version 7 on is css2 compliant. When you create a table structure in html it displays a table and your content is wholly dependent on the source order of the code. WebAdvantages of CSS3 CSS3 provides a consistent and precise positioning of navigable elements. Its not going to bother me at all. Ive read the debates. I just said they were faster, which you proved. of CSS vs tables when it is clear that one can can use CSS techniques with respect to tables as well as divs? To me, framing the debate this way is yet another attempt to make a distinction the ability to do this is what switched me from using the table-based layouts I was first taught. That should tell you something. It can be used in a wide range of applications. Learning how to use Dreamweaver is not the same as learning to write the code. I fought this very same battle using tables back in the 90s. The pros and cons are supposed to be regarding the setting up of grid layouts using display:table. I disagree about it being more code. Your tutorials are really only half-done and stop at the parts where css begins breaks down. Same thing with the issue youre having with css. I hardly ever have to write more than a few lines of code specific to IE. I also kept all my university textbooks just in case I would need them guess what? CSS (divs) is hard to learn Simply not true. Not doing something because it takes time to learn is laziness.. If your dealing with a site that was built with tables then youre probably going to continue using tables on that site. The programing language world is complicated for non-developers and beginners. Youll have more control over how your page displays with divs that can aid in how a screenreader sees your content, but again you can create equally accessible pages using either approach. I hope that helps answer some of the questions. One debate Im honestly curious about is the best way to go about table type content with CSS, such as using the actual table properties, using display: inline, using float: left, etc wheres that write up? Why does it matter how divs are rendered as long as the document written with strong conventions and good semantics? They dont need a lot of fancy features or tons of content. which is all fine and helpful. My bad on missing the context of your statement. For some reason this is frowned upon as well. Its been years since I wrote more than a few lines of code specifically for any one browser and none of that code is a hack. Note: There are times when a row can have less or more cells than Divs cant do what tables can as simple as that. By the way if something you followed here didnt work for you, you could have chosen to ask me if Id help figure out why and I likely would have. It sounds like youre using tables the same way Im suggesting is fine. Ill reserve judgment on maintenance but I have a hunch Ill be able to go in and make the same changes equally as quickly whether I start with the div or table test pages. Let me also say that if you prefer to develop sites with a table-based layout, good for you. Sure you can say they just need to learn more, but sorry, they didnt. Its often used as simple data storage, NoSQL. One instruction can control several areas which is advantageous. Its less-influenced by personal biases and emotions. In the best case scenario youd be adding at least another table cell to get another block of information compared to adding another div for another block of information, which would grow our code equally. acknowledge that you have read and understood our, Data Structure & Algorithm Classes (Live), Data Structures & Algorithms in JavaScript, Data Structure & Algorithm-Self Paced(C++/JAVA), Full Stack Development with React & Node JS(Live), Android App Development with Kotlin(Live), Python Backend Development with Django(Live), DevOps Engineering - Planning to Production, GATE CS Original Papers and Official Keys, ISRO CS Original Papers and Official Keys, ISRO CS Syllabus for Scientist/Engineer Exam, Interview Preparation For Software Developers. I agree with what you are saying, however I think with the advancement of HTML 5, tables will start to disappear. 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