News & Articles

Two Types of Layout: CSS vs. Tables

Written by: William Knelsen

Who should read this article?

I am writing this article for those who wish to know a little more about how we construct our websites currently versus how we used to construct our websites, and why we made the switch from table-based layout to css-based layout.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

CSS is our current method of developing websites. In simple terms, CSS provides a way to develop a website in a way that provides the most control over the design of the site.

A website is made up of several files. These files will contain the content of the website, typically written in HTML (Hyper-Text Mark-up Language). CSS is the set of commands that determines what that content looks like, and is stored in a seperal file, or files, which provides easy access to all of the commands in one place.

Tables

Most people who have had to organize a bunch of data, knw that using a table is an excellent method to organize all of that data. In the early 90's, when websites became popular, people needed a way to layout graphics and information in a website. At the time, CSS had not yet been invented, but tables were already being used in websites to organize data, so developers started using tables, which seemed to work quite well to layout the entire website.

The Problem with Tables

Tables are used to construct websites more often than CSS, simply because it is incredibly easy to manipulate table cells to align graphics on a website. Also, tables existed before CSS, and thus became the default method of layout in a website, but it is definetely not the best way to develop websites.

Although tables provide an excellent way to layout a website, they also hinder a developer in the long run by limiting future changes. When a website is created with tables as the layout method, making simple changes, such as adding menu items, changing background colors, and adjusting the width or height of elements, becomes a daunting and time consuming task.

We have personally exprienced these issues, and as we continued to grow as a company, we had more and more sites to keep updated and make changes to. When we discovered CSS as a method to layout a website, we decided to make a change in how we develop websites.

A Better Way

You may wonder why you should get your website developed by a company that uses CSS rather than tables. Here are a few benefits:

More control over design
CSS is incredibly powerful, and the possibilities of design are endless. Not only are there more options when it comes to design, but those options come at a lower cost in the long run because of the simplicity of making changes to CSS.

Better Search Engine Placement
Search Engines only care about content, so naturally when the only thing on your page is content, they will have an easier time navigating your website. If a website is developed using tables, the seach engine has to sift through all of the code that comes with table-based layout, thus hindering your website's placement in the search results.

More Design Options
With CSS, a website has the potential of having multiple design schemes, such as a design for the average user, low-vision users, a design for printing, and a design for mobile devices such as Palm Pilots and Blackberries.

These are just a few of the benefits that you receive as a result of us making the choice to switch from tables to CSS.

If you would like more information on this topic, please feel free to contact us by phone at 204-325-4139 or by email.