- Tables allow for greater control over page layout, allowing the creation of more visually interesting pages.
- Tables help designers lay out text and graphics on the page so that they remain in specific places and relationships to other information on the page.
- Tables also help determine what happens to the content of a web page when the browser window is re-sized.
- Tables are also used to set apart sections of documents, such as in sidebars, navigation bars, or framing images and their titles and captions.
Often tables are not visible on a site's visitor pages. Grids and columnar layouts use tables often invisible, to control page layout.
- Many Web pages utilize tables as the primary means of controlling the placement of page elements. This is often done with an invisible table. This example uses an invisible table to create three distinct areas
- Sites with newspaper-like layouts using tables. These sites show distinct columns to create the columns.
- Distinctly coloured backgrounds for separate cells in a table can be created to highlight and separate information.