Notes on tables:
Tables can be used to display specific information on the screen or to divide your whole page into sections that are easy to manage.
The basic table is created with <TABLE> </TABLE>
<TR> is used for rows, <TH> is for headers and <TD> is for the information going into a particular cell/column on a row. Some books will tell you that the close of these is optional, but I feel you should use them. Future standards that expand on HTML are much more demanding of closing things correctly. Note that headers can be used across a row or down a column.
Yes headers can be inserted other than at the top and on the left.
Captions can be aligned top and bottom (some browsers support left and right (explorer) which defaults to top, others have problems if this is introduced (opera)).
You can group columns for formatting purposes in some browsers - other browsers appear to just ignore. See expertable1.html uses COLSPAN which is a structural grouping and appears to be supported only by Explorer. You can also use COL in Explorer which is considered non-structural (does not get involved with dividing lines etc). I am including these not for your use because support is not wide enough, but as something to keep your eye on in the future.
BORDERCOLOR= takes care of your border. It reacts differently in different browsers and does not appear in the current version of Opera (see expertable1.html). Explorer also supports BORDERCOLORDARK= and BORDERCOLORLIGHT= (see expertable2.html) Explorer also supports a way where you can use FRAME= to determine which sides of the frame will show. One more thing Explorer has is RULES= where you can establish none, all, rows or cols to specify which internal lines you want to see (see expertable2.html).
CELLSPACING= adds spaces between cells in pixels making the table bigger without changing the size of cells - it effects the distance between cells. CELLPADDING= effects the space between the border of the cell and the contents of the cell (see expertable3.html)
You can keep information in a cell in a single line by using the NOWRAP - this means the cell as wide as necessary and frequently results in a setup you do not want. I prefer to control wrap with <BR> so it breaks where I want it to break.
VALIGN lets you align the contents of the cell to top and bottom as opposed to align which is for left, right and center. Again - support issues but supported better!
Note you can use WIDTH= to see the absolute values in pixels or to use percentages. Note that if you make the table and or cells too small for the contents, the settings will be ignored by the browsers. Some browsers also support HEIGHT=. WIDTH and HEIGHT (if supported) can be set at the TABLE level or at the row and column level. Note that you adjust the width in one row (all cells) and the height in the first cell of the row to adjust for the row.
ALIGN=CENTER can be used in the table tag or you can use the DIV to do the alignment before the table. Check implementation in old browsers. (see expertable4.html)
You can also change a cells color by using BGCOLOR within the cell or row. This is widely supported (see expertable3.html)
Note you should only set a width for the whole table if you are going to use proportional widths in the cells (see expertable4.html)