Lay it on the Table
Please note this article was first published in 13 Aug 2009. Its content may now be out of date. We recommend taking a look at more recent website building blog posts or check out our comprehensive support pages. If you are looking for information on our 14 day free website builder trial we have a large number of webpages that guide you throug the process.
Lay it on the Table
It’s vitally important for your website pages to be easy on the eye to help visitors take in all your information in the simplest and most pleasant way possible. Adding structure to your page to organise your content is a great way to achieve this and one of the most effective ways to add structure is to use tables.
Tables can be very useful should you have a number of images, which you need to display. They can also help you to align, group or separate text and make it far easier to display combinations of images and text.
Latest blog posts
Evolving Your Website Using Background Videos
These days, websites without background videos run the risk of appearing old-fashioned. Even dinosaurish,
There’s nothing wrong with dinosaurs, or with looking like one. Dinosaurs are cool. Unless they’re chasing you of course.
But our new background videos have landed, exploded and changed the game. They have wiped out the old standards for beautiful websites, and have replaced them with a new standard that will leave all other websites looking like fossils.
Luckily, both our existing clients and our new ones have access to this brilliant new feature we’ve introduced, and we’d like to share its benefits with you today.
Bold, Italics, Capitals – When To Call On Your Superheroes
A superhero is only super because he or she stands out amongst the crowd. If we were a planet of flying, teleporting, time-freezing super-strong aliens, then we wouldn’t think there was anything super about us. When it comes to using formatting methods such as bold, italics, capitals or centering, all of these little text-enhancing superheroes will only stand out if they are used sparingly, in the right place, and when absolutely necessary…
Do I Need To Add Testimonials To My Website?
Reviews, testimonials, recommendations – we all seek reassurance in them. We might even skip past the good ones just to see if there are any bad ones.Other people are sources of information for us. They can tell us whether this product or service is actually any good or not. Reading their testimonials builds trust in your business.
Should I Buy Multiple Domain Names For My Website?
If I have multiple domain names, will my website rank better on the search engines? Will I be more likely to draw in extra traffic? Will my website become a supercharged powerhouse bursting with domain names that will become a magnet for new business? The answer might not be quite as positive as you would expect, but hopefully we can answer your questions during this article…
How To Choose The Best Domain Name For Your Website
Choosing a domain name for your new business may not be as simple as you think. Most people just use their company name, but unless your branding is well recognised, this may work against you…
Is It Possible For A Website To Look Too Good?
Is it possible for your business website to look too good? Too polished? Too slick? Too posh?
Perhaps it depends on how slick and posh you already are.
Stop Collecting Email Addresses On Your Website…Unless You Have Permission!
“If a customer fills out a form and adds their email address, what can I do with it?” This is a terrible question, asked by non-GDPR compliant cavemen and cavewoman who still think it’s OK to treat other people’s info as if it’s their own…
How Do I Send An Email Newsletter?
You are building a GDPR-friendly email list, and now you want to start sending out newsletters, the professional way. Where do you start?
Selling Isn’t A Dirty Word. Selling Is Serving!
“Don’t sell your product. Solve their problems.” Mark Cuban’s wise words sum up the art of selling – it is about helping people, fixing problems and improving the lives of others…
Don’t Be A Clown. Get A Professional Email Address For Your Business.
iF we’re honest, not many people will accuse you of clownery for not having a proper business email address. But they might not call you professional either…
A Website To Grow Your Business, In Just Over A Week
Building a professional website to grow your business should be easy and seamless from start to end. We offer to build your business website for you, in four easy steps…
Is Your Website Secure? Upgrade To HTTPS ASAP!
When July 2018 hits, Google Chrome will make sure a strong warning will pop up on any website that has not yet updated from “http” to “https”. The warning will include something along the lines of “Website Not Secure”. Here’s how to avoid it.
Website Tables
Tables are rectangular boundaries made up of rows and columns, which create variable rectangles called cells. By placing your content into these calls, you can control its position and dimension.
To place a table, set your cursor on a new line and click the Insert Table icon in your editor.
In the Table Properties window, You will see the following options:
ROWS - Rows hold lines of one or more horizontal cells. The widths of each row cell are determined by the overall width of the table and can be set in pixels or percentage. If a table is 500 pixels wide, the width of the cells and cell spaces, when added together, can not exceed 500 pixels. The tallest cell in the row, which is determined by the cells content, determines a rows height.
COLUMNS - A column is a line of one or more vertical table cells. A column will be as wide as the widest cell in the column.
BORDER – Border size can be set from 0 – 99. A setting of 0 will hide the lines of the table in live view but will be visible to you in the editor so you can arrange content cleanly on your page but without the grid lines. While 99 is the biggest number you can put into the border size window it is enormous and not practical. Ideally set the size to any number under 20. This will determine the thickness of the border and add normal lines for the table cells.
ALIGNMENT (Left, Centre, Right) – Sets the position of your table on the page.
CAPTION – Inserts a title for your table, centred and above.
WIDTH – Set a specific pixel size or choose a percentage of your page width.
CELL SPACING - Cell spacing is the space between cells.
CELL PADDING - Cell padding is space between the cell wall and the content within the cell.
The first step is to select the number of rows and columns you need. If you’re not sure, don’t worry you can always go back to add or remove them as required by right clicking your table (click on the background of the table not the content).
Right clicking your table also provides the following options:
Cut, Copy, Paste.
Cell – allows you to insert cells before and after and delete cells. Merge cells to the right or down. Split cells horizontally and vertically. Alter the cell properties including Width and Height, word wrap (behaviour of text within cells), Horizontal and Vertical Alignment of content, Row and Column span, Background colour and border colour of each cell selected (select all cells to change colours on whole table).
Row and Column - insert before and after and delete.
Top Tips
When placing images in cells, I always find it easier to centre align them all. This can also help when placing text under or above images such as titles or descriptions as when the text is also centred, everything lines up cleanly.
If you choose to have an invisible table, extra rows in between content can help to space the content out nicely.
You can also add background colour to these rows to create neat divider lines.
You will need to do some maths when setting the widths and heights of both tables and individual cells.
Tables within tables should be used carefully or better still avoided as “Nesting tables” as they are called, can create excessive and complicated HTML code, which can make your web page slow to load and could cause errors on your page.
We'd love these blog pages to become a handy forum for all DotGO Web Builders, so please add your comments or questions and let's get chatting!!
Please remember, this article was first published 13/08/2009. The content may be out of date and you cannot post comments any more. Please check out our new blog.
Own a website you are proud of.
One that looks professional on any device,
performs well on Google and is easy to update.
Build your own business website
You build it
Choose a design you like
With simple, powerful tools
and friendly customer service.
Let us build your website for you
We build it
Choose a design you like
From just £299
Usually complete within 10 days.
Want to learn more ?
Find out more about us
We have been in business since 2003. Back when the founders of Facebook were still in college, we were writing code and helping our users create great websites.
Get help and support
If you need help, why not check out our huge selection of videos, step-by-step guides and knowledge papers.
Check out real examples
We have helped many thousands of our customers create great looking websites. Take a look at a few examples, created using our website builder.