Tables - Web Development and Design Foundations with XHTML - page 315

Figure 8.5
Table added to
services.html

XHTML Table Attributes

Common <table> element attributes include align , border , bordercolor , width ,
cellspacing , cellpadding , bgcolor , summary , and title . The default display of
rows and cells in tables can also be modified using attributes. The most commonly used
attributes with the <td> element to configure table cells are bgcolor , valign , rowspan ,
and colspan . Since XHTML table attributes are widely used on the Web, it's a good
idea to become familiar with them. You'll discover how to configure most of these
features using CSS later in this chapter. Let's take a closer look at attributes used with
<table> elements.

FAQ

Why doesn't my table display?

While Internet Explorer will display a table even if you forget about a closing tag here or there,
other browsers such as Firefox can be very picky. Be sure to use Firefox to test pages that
contain tables. Internet Explorer will often ignore a missing or misspelled tag and display your
table. However, when Firefox encounters missing or unmatched table tags, it sometimes will
not display parts of your Web page or display only a portion of the table.

As you read about each <table> element attribute, experiment with the Birthday List
table. The best way to learn to write XHTML is to practice it.