Example Tables

As a place to start, move this web page into the editor. Click on a cell in the right column, then select Table Info from the Format menu and see what settings were made to get the look you see.  To see all the changes made in Table Info, you may need to click on all three options: table, row and cell. But it is not enough to just see these features. Create a new blank page in Netscape Composer, make some tables, and use the table commands to try out these concepts. Further, as you add images to your web pages, consider using the table structure to control their placement.
 
 
A special caption box can be placed above or below tables. This text is in a caption box.
Feature Situational Relevance
An entire embedded table can usefully consist of one cell. That is, you insert a one cell table within the cell of another table.
You want the text to be within a cell, but you need to have extra white-space between the text and the border of the cell to make it more readable. (Color has been added to this cell to make this more obvious.)
The thickness of table lines and edges can be changed. The inner table has its border set to 5. The colors can be set differently for inner and outer cells but note how the outer cell determines the color border of the inner cell but not the color within the cell. Text can go here.
Text can go here.
Text can go here.
Borders around tables are optional.  Cell padding can also be used to put more white space around the edge of text but it does not always work as expected. Text can go here.
Background color has been set to make this inner table more obvious but generally you would not put color behind the text which would make the text crowd the edge of the color unless you also set cell padding to a larger number. Here cell padding within this inner table has been set to 5.
Text can go here.
Cells expand to fit the size of an image or amount of text. If there is an empty cell it appears filled with a solid color, in this case white.
 If you want the appearance of an empty cell with visible borders, you must put something in it. Here only a period has been entered. .
The cell to the right has something in it, but it is invisible. A background image has been inserted that is white and exactly 1 pixel big. This means that it is a white dot the size of a period on a white background.
A background image has also been inserted that is 1 pixel big. But this white dot the size of a period is inserted and centered over a dark green background color. Can you see the white cell?
Cells can be spanned if one cell needs to cut across the space of one or more additional cells. This cell has been spanned across two columns and background color added to the row to make it stand out.
Cell spanning can go horizontally with the row or vertically with the column. Here three rows have been spanned.

 
Unequal Columns command. Tables can also provide unequal column spacing. The spacing of a cell can also be defined as a percentage of the table or as an absolute value for the number of pixels. This must be set in the first row of cells which then sets the pattern for the rest of the table.


Page author: Houghton