Why should we avoid use of tables for layout in HTML ?

Last Updated : 01 Jun, 2023

In this article, we will learn why we should avoid using tables for layout in HTML. A website can be divided into various sections comprising of header, menus, content, and footer based on which there are many different layout designs available for developers. Different layouts can be created by using an HTML div tag and CSS property to style them. Tables are used to store or view data in a tabular form.

When you look at this webpage then you will come to know that in this current webpage there is a number of different tabs or cards which are showing different information. When you look at the table then you can observe that there are cells of the same size. A webpage with the same size layout will not look good as compared to a grid layout.

The reasons to avoid using tables for layout in HTML are listed below:

Tables Are Not Accessible: Most search engines read the webpage as they read HTML and it becomes difficult for the search engine to render the table layout. This is the main reason why we follow the HTML5 format.
Tables Are Tricky: When you perform nesting in tables then it is difficult to maintain it. When you want to change something after some days then it will become complicated for the developer to debug the code.
Tables Are Inflexible: When you want to create the table layout with specified widths then it will become a rigid layout or not flexible and then it will take some extra time to load your page properly. The flexible layout always looks good on any device.
Tables Hurt Search Engine Optimization: Many developers create the navigation on the left-hand side and the rest of the content on the right side. If you use tables the search engine will load the content first then the navigation will start to load without navigation, the content will look not so good.
Tables Don’t Always Print Well: When you try to print the table layout the printer will change the interface because the table layout is too wide. The printer will then try to cut down some content or show extra content to the next page which will make it complicated.
Tables for Layout Are Invalid in HTML 4.01: You can’t create the table layout when you use HTML 4.01 because you can only be allowed to create a simple table. For example spreadsheets or databases. Another reason is that other browsers find it tough to render through the table layout.

Normal Layout:

Table Layout:

As you can notice from the above diagram, the table element is not appropriate for making the layout. You can use a table layout for making the forms. Tables in HTML are used for presenting tabular data. We are not showing data on one device, there are numerous other devices with different resolutions and the tabular data will not look good on a small platform.

Example 1: In the below code, we will make use of the table layout.

HTML

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title> GeeksforGeeks</title>
    <style>
        form {
            display: table;
            margin: 0 auto;
        }
 
        form div {
            display: table-row;
        }
 
        form label,
        form input {
            display: table-cell;
            margin-bottom: 10px;
        }
 
        form label {
            width: 200px;
            padding-right: 5%;
            text-align: right;
        }
 
        form input {
            width: 300px;
        }
 
        form p {
            display: table-caption;
            caption-side: bottom;
            width: 300px;
            color: #999;
            font-style: italic;
        }
    </style>
</head>
 
<body>
    <div class="header">
        <h2 style="color:green;font-size:150%; 
                   text-align:center;">
            GeeksforGeeks
        </h2>
    </div>
    <form>
        <div>
            <label for="fname">First name:</label>
            <input type="text" id="fname">
        </div>
        <div>
            <label for="lname">Last name:</label>
            <input type="text" id="lname">
        </div>
        <div>
            <label for="age">Age:</label>
            <input type="text" id="age">
        </div>
    </form>
</body>
</html>

Output:

Example 2: In the below code, we will make a table layout for better understanding.

HTML

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>table-layout property</title>
    <style>
        table {
            border-collapse: collapse;
            border: 1px solid black;
        }
         
        th,
        td {
            border: 1px solid black;
        }
         
        table#table1 {
            table-layout: auto;
            width: 200px;
        }
         
        table#table2 {
            table-layout: fixed;
            width: 200px;
        }
         
        div {
            max-width: 200px;
            padding: 10px;
            border: 1px solid black;
        }
         
        h1 {
            color: green;
        }
    </style>
</head>
 
<body>
    <center>
        <h1>GeeksforGeeks</h1>
        <h2>A computer science portal for geeks</h2>
        <div>
            <h3>GFG University</h3>
            <table id="table1">
                <tr>
                    <th>Author Name</th>
                    <th>Age</th>
                    <th>College</th>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <td>RaviPratap </td>
                    <td>24</td>
                    <td>GFG</td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <td>Rakesh </td>
                    <td>25</td>
                    <td>GEEKS</td>
                </tr>
            </table>
        </div>
        <br>        
    </center>
</body>
</html>