HTML Layout using Tables

CSS Website Layout

A website is often divided into headers, menus, content and a footer:

There are tons of different layout designs to choose from. However, the structure above, is one of the most common, and we will take a closer look at it in this tutorial.

Header

A header is usually located at the top of the website (or right below a top navigation menu). It often contains a logo or the website name:

Example

Header

Navigation Bar

A navigation bar contains a list of links to help visitors navigating through your website:

Example

/* The navbar container */
.topnav overflow: hidden;
background-color: #333;
>

/* Navbar links */
.topnav a float: left;
display: block;
color: #f2f2f2;
text-align: center;
padding: 14px 16px;
text-decoration: none;
>

/* Links — change color on hover */
.topnav a:hover background-color: #ddd;
color: black;
>

Content

The layout in this section, often depends on the target users. The most common layout is one (or combining them) of the following:

• 1-column (often used for mobile browsers)
• 2-column (often used for tablets and laptops)
• 3-column layout (only used for desktops)

We will create a 3-column layout, and change it to a 1-column layout on smaller screens:

Example

/* Create three equal columns that float next to each other */
.column float: left;
width: 33.33%;
>

/* Clear floats after the columns */
.row:after content: «»;
display: table;
clear: both;
>

/* Responsive layout — makes the three columns stack on top of each other instead of next to each other on smaller screens (600px wide or less) */
@media screen and (max-width: 600px) .column width: 100%;
>
>

Column

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Maecenas sit amet pretium urna. Vivamus venenatis velit nec neque ultricies, eget elementum magna tristique.

Column

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Maecenas sit amet pretium urna. Vivamus venenatis velit nec neque ultricies, eget elementum magna tristique.

Column

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Maecenas sit amet pretium urna. Vivamus venenatis velit nec neque ultricies, eget elementum magna tristique.

Tip: To create a 2-column layout, change the width to 50%. To create a 4-column layout, use 25%, etc.

Tip: Do you wonder how the @media rule works? Read more about it in our CSS Media Queries chapter.

Tip: A more modern way of creating column layouts, is to use CSS Flexbox. However, it is not supported in Internet Explorer 10 and earlier versions. If you require IE6-10 support, use floats (as shown above).

To learn more about the Flexible Box Layout Module, read our CSS Flexbox chapter.

Unequal Columns

The main content is the biggest and the most important part of your site.

It is common with unequal column widths, so that most of the space is reserved for the main content. The side content (if any) is often used as an alternative navigation or to specify information relevant to the main content. Change the widths as you like, only remember that it should add up to 100% in total:

Example

/* Left and right column */
.column.side width: 25%;
>

/* Middle column */
.column.middle width: 50%;
>

/* Responsive layout — makes the three columns stack on top of each other instead of next to each other */
@media screen and (max-width: 600px) .column.side, .column.middle width: 100%;
>
>

Side

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

Main Content

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Maecenas sit amet pretium urna. Vivamus venenatis velit nec neque ultricies, eget elementum magna tristique. Quisque vehicula, risus eget aliquam placerat, purus leo tincidunt eros, eget luctus quam orci in velit. Praesent scelerisque tortor sed accumsan convallis.

Side

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

Footer

The footer is placed at the bottom of your page. It often contains information like copyright and contact info:

Example

Responsive Website Layout

By using some of the CSS code above, we have created a responsive website layout, which varies between two columns and full-width columns depending on screen width:

Ever heard about W3Schools Spaces? Here you can create your website from scratch or use a template, and host it for free.

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HTML — Layouts

A webpage layout is very important to give better look to your website. It takes considerable time to design a website’s layout with great look and feel.

Now-a-days, all modern websites are using CSS and JavaScript based framework to come up with responsive and dynamic websites but you can create a good layout using simple HTML tables or division tags in combination with other formatting tags. This chapter will give you few examples on how to create a simple but working layout for your webpage using pure HTML and its attributes.

HTML Layout — Using Tables

Example

For example, the following HTML layout example is achieved using a table with 3 rows and 2 columns but the header and footer column spans both columns using the colspan attribute −

      
 
 
This is Web Page Main title
 
 
 
 
Main Menu 
HTML 
PHP 
PERL.
 
Technical and Managerial Tutorials
 
 
 
 Copyright © 2007 Tutorialspoint.com 
 
 
   

This will produce the following result −

Multiple Columns Layout — Using Tables

You can design your webpage to put your web content in multiple pages. You can keep your content in middle column and you can use left column to use menu and right column can be used to put advertisement or some other stuff. This layout will be very similar to what we have at our website tutorialspoint.com.

Example

Here is an example to create three column layout −

        Main Menu 
HTML 
PHP 
PERL. Technical and Managerial Tutorials Right Menu 
HTML 
PHP 
PERL.   

This will produce the following result −

HTML Layouts — Using DIV, SPAN

The element is a block level element used for grouping HTML elements. While the tag is a block-level element, the HTML element is used for grouping elements at an inline level.

Although we can achieve pretty nice layouts with HTML tables, but tables weren’t really designed as a layout tool. Tables are more suited to presenting tabular data.

Note − This example makes use of Cascading Style Sheet (CSS), so before understanding this example you need to have a better understanding on how CSS works.

Example

      
 
This is Web Page Main title
 
 
Main Menu
 HTML 
PHP 
PERL.
 
Technical and Managerial Tutorials
 
 
Right Menu
 HTML 
PHP 
PERL.
 
 Copyright © 2007 Tutorialspoint.com 
 
   

This will produce the following result −

You can create better layout using DIV, SPAN along with CSS. For more information on CSS, please refer to CSS Tutorial.

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HTML Layout Elements and Techniques

Websites often display content in multiple columns (like a magazine or a newspaper).

Example

Cities

London

London is the capital city of England. It is the most populous city in the United Kingdom, with a metropolitan area of over 13 million inhabitants.

Standing on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its founding by the Romans, who named it Londinium.

HTML Layout Elements

HTML has several semantic elements that define the different parts of a web page:

— Defines a header for a document or a section
— Defines a set of navigation links
— Defines a section in a document
— Defines an independent, self-contained content
— Defines content aside from the content (like a sidebar)
— Defines a footer for a document or a section
— Defines additional details that the user can open and close on demand
— Defines a heading for the element

• — Defines a header for a document or a section
• — Defines a set of navigation links
• — Defines a section in a document
• — Defines an independent, self-contained content
• — Defines content aside from the content (like a sidebar)
• — Defines a footer for a document or a section
• — Defines additional details that the user can open and close on demand
• — Defines a heading for the element

You can read more about semantic elements in our HTML Semantics chapter.

HTML Layout Techniques

There are four different techniques to create multicolumn layouts. Each technique has its pros and cons:

CSS Frameworks

If you want to create your layout fast, you can use a CSS framework, like W3.CSS or Bootstrap.

Ever heard about W3Schools Spaces? Here you can create your website from scratch or use a template, and host it for free.

CSS Float Layout

It is common to do entire web layouts using the CSS float property. Float is easy to learn — you just need to remember how the float and clear properties work. Disadvantages: Floating elements are tied to the document flow, which may harm the flexibility. Learn more about float in our CSS Float and Clear chapter.

Example

Cities

London

London is the capital city of England. It is the most populous city in the United Kingdom, with a metropolitan area of over 13 million inhabitants.

Standing on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its founding by the Romans, who named it Londinium.

CSS Flexbox Layout

Use of flexbox ensures that elements behave predictably when the page layout must accommodate different screen sizes and different display devices.

Learn more about flexbox in our CSS Flexbox chapter.

Example

Cities

London

London is the capital city of England. It is the most populous city in the United Kingdom, with a metropolitan area of over 13 million inhabitants.

Standing on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its founding by the Romans, who named it Londinium.

CSS Grid Layout

The CSS Grid Layout Module offers a grid-based layout system, with rows and columns, making it easier to design web pages without having to use floats and positioning.

Learn more about CSS grids in our CSS Grid Intro chapter.

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