HTML and CSS —

The Table's Set…

Whether you're a doctor, scientist, professional assistant, instructor, student, or legal clerk, you're going to find a need at some point to place information into tables. Think about all the uses you might find for using tables on public or private websites:

  • Medical charting

  • Research results from scientific studies

  • Calendar of events

  • Grade and attendance tracking

  • Task management

  • Court case information

And the list can go on for as long as you can imagine. It becomes quite easy to see why tables are so important for managing content appropriately.

Of course, another use for tables is to display information that is collected in databases. One way such information can be collected is via a website. Let's say you're a real estate agent who wants to develop a database of people interested in buying and selling land in your area.

You can put up an interactive form to collect information from willing participants. The form would then be processed on the server using database technology and would return the data to your website, formatted in a table. Of course, this demands the interactivity of forms and server-side technology. Although database and server applications are beyond the scope of this tutorial, the necessary elements for providing interactive forms are found within markup.

Coming up next, you'll learn all about forms and how to set up great interactive forms that will help enhance your site visitor's experience to your pages and help you get the most feedback, in turn.