Advanced Tables

Section 1 - Introduction
Section 2 - Basics
Section 3 - Next Level
Section 4 - Advanced
      Fancy Lists
      Forms
      Advanced Tables
         Color tables
         Background images
         Nested tables
         Formatting with tables
         You try it
      Frames
      Style Sheets
      Image Maps
Section 5 - Publishing
Section 6 - Extras
Appendices

One of the most useful things you can do with a table it to put it inside another table. NESTED TABLES. This allows you to stack tables, both with and without borders, to your heart's content. Let's look at a really cool series of tables:

Yes, those are a series of tables. Only the outside table has a border; all of the rest are plain. Putting tables within other tables allows you to format a document any way you'd like. Let's look at a more formal table:

1987 projected growth:

						X
				X		X
X				X		X	X
X		X	X	X	X	X	X	X			X
X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X		X	X
X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O	N	D

The data presented in this figure is pointless and misleading, but you get the point that this can be created with tables. Isn't that grand? Tables may be the most useful way to get information condensed and organized. Putting tables within tables just adds to the organization.

Notice how there is actually a table within the table? Nice, huh? In truth, you can put anything inside of another table, including other tables.

A word of warning - when you put tables inside of tables, it's really easy to forget to close all of the tables and all of the table data cells. Never forget the </> tags!!!

Sometimes it's fun to put a table around an area to give it a border. Here's a borderless table inside of a bordered table.

Code
<table border=1> <tr> <td> <table border=0 cellpadding=3> <tr> <td> This is square 1. </td> <td> This is square 2. </td> </tr> <tr> <td> This is square 3. </td> <td> This is square 4. </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table>

What you see

This is square 1.	This is square 2.
This is square 3.	This is square 4.

Practice using nested tables to format your difficult documents. Not only is it fun, but you'll have people wondering how on earth you did that!