When Tables are Just Tables

By Deane Barker • •
AI Summary

This post explores the simplicity and effectiveness of using HTML tables for data presentation, arguing that they serve their purpose well without unnecessary complexity. The author suggests that tables should be used when appropriate, emphasizing clarity and usability in web design.

Note

Looking back in 2025: if you weren’t building websites in the late 1990s or very early 2000s, this not make sense to you. But we used to use HTML TABLE tags for site layout. Seriously. The main layout of your site would be a single, big table. That’s the context behind this post.

Here’s another argument for CSS-based, table-less design that I haven’t heard before: by not using tables for layout, then you know that a table is, in fact, a table intended for the display of tabular data.

Yesterday, a client of mine wanted to insert a table into the description of one of their products. They did this through eZ publish’s WYSIWYG editor, but they weren’t happy with how it looked. They wanted it formatted up all nice with borders and a header row and everything.

My first instinct was, how do I isolate just those tables that are meant to display tabular data? I started looking through the code to figure out where in the layout the table would appear so I could isolate it, etc.

Then I realized: I have no tables in the entire site. Everything is in a positioned DIV. This means that I could style tables globally without regard to breaking anything else on the page.

I had a field day for 10 minutes after that, styling up TABLE, TD, and TH tags to make a neat, orderly table layout. My tables are single-purpose now – I know that if there’s a table in the page, it’s meant to look like I styled it up.