Last Updated : 05 Aug, 2025
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:
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>
Output:
RetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo | Open a GitHub Issue
Search and Browse the WWW like it's 1997 | Search results from DuckDuckGo
HTML:
3.2
| Encoding:
UTF-8
| Version:
0.7.4