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Are HTML tables considered bad in 2016?

S

Staples

Diamond Member
I have not been big into web design for nearly 10 years. I used to use tables a lot then and everything worked well. Now looking at modern tutorials, everyone is trying to do everything with floating DIVs with complex CSS. As I have found out, this just makes things a lot more complicated than they should be for essentially the same result besides DIVs MAYBE scale better to smaller screens.

Are tables considered bad these days?

(on a side note, there are a lot of modern technologies such as javascript frameworks that I have the same complaint about).
 
I use them :$

Bootstrap has a bunch of classes that a table can use, "table-responsive", "table-bordered" etc. So I guess they're still relevant.
 
Tables are just fine for displaying tabular data.

Don't use a table for layout of content, as in don't create a table with one row and two columns to make a 'page with side navigation layout'.
 
Tables dont play well in "responsive" design. Responsive design is a style that looks good no matter the screen size or layout and tables are too rigid, requiring the same rows and columns no matter what the screen orientation. I use them sparingly, only when data is best shown tabular.
 
If you're actually displaying a table, and not just using a table for column layout, tables are fine.

If you're not concerned with your table being resizable and/or responsive to users of smaller screens (tablet/mobile) tables are fine.
 
Like the others have said, it's fine for literal tabular data but it's not advisable to use for normal layouts (i.e. I want a nav column on each side of my main content so I'll use one big column and two smaller).

That being said I can agree that using <div> elements and CSS for layout can be a real pain in the ass, especially if you want or need to support all browsers. Honestly, if responsive web sites aren't really that big of a deal to you (and your users!) then go ahead with using tables for layout. No one's gonna sue ya.

If you don't mind learning something new, I'd suggest checking out Bootstrap. I've recently began using it for a new website and man it is really slick. There's a learning curve involved but it's not substantial, and it is a major framework that's gonna be around for awhile IMO. Hell, Visual Studio is bundled with it now (that's actually how I started using it). Bootstrap makes it much easier to make responsive websites and includes support for tables too, even.
 
As others have mentioned, use tables for displaying tabular data, and responsive grid-based frameworks like Bootstrap for page layout.

Oh, and emails still need tables for layout.
 
KB said:
Tables dont play well in "responsive" design. Responsive design is a style that looks good no matter the screen size or layout and tables are too rigid, requiring the same rows and columns no matter what the screen orientation. I use them sparingly, only when data is best shown tabular.
Click to expand...

Pretty much this. They suck if you want your site to be mobile friendly (however, mobile design in general is pretty horrible for displaying lots of data).

Other than that, they have their place when it comes to tabular data.

If you find you need a table and you want to be mobile friendly, you need to rethink your design.
 
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