| If you are still designing with tables then you are | | | | users to design style |
| missing out on a lot of the benefits of cascading | | | | sheets that will cause documents to render more |
| style sheets (CSS). Tables were not supposed to be | | | | appropriately for certain devices such as braille |
| used for designing but unfortunately it has been the | | | | devices, speech synthesizers, or tty (text telephone) |
| standard for a long time.Not any more.1. Separate | | | | devices.Learn more about Accessibility Features of |
| content from presentation. An external style sheet | | | | CSS |
| can contain all the styles for your web site, then if | | | | Save time. CSS will allow you to design your site |
| you want to change the content you only have to | | | | much faster than tables because there are some |
| edit one style sheet. This is great for a web site that | | | | styles you can use for every site. |
| | | | I store "often used" CSS snippets in a special file |
| contains hundreds or thousands of pages.Imagine if | | | | where I can easily access them for any site I |
| you had to edit each page..it would take you | | | | design.9. Save money. CSS will shorten the project |
| forever.2. Google benefits. Google gives more weight | | | | development process and eliminate design obstacles |
| to content closer to the top of your HTML | | | | that occur from using tables. If designing many web |
| document. Search engines spider the content that | | | | sites you will be able to use the same style sheets or |
| comes first in your source code. With CSS you can | | | | just make a |
| easily structure the | | | | few modifications to them. You will still charge for |
| content to appear first with the rest of the source | | | | the design project but it won't take as long as when |
| code following it. This will help outrank your | | | | using tables thus making you more money in a |
| competitors who may have their navigation appear | | | | shorter time period.10. Flexibility of design. You can |
| first and their content last..3. Fast loading pages. | | | | use pixel precision in your web site designs. By |
| Tables slow down the loading of your pages because | | | | adjusting the margins and padding of the CSS you |
| the spider has to crawl through each table. If your | | | | can easily adjust the position of your content. |
| tables are nested inside each other your page will | | | | You can also create very modern designs that can't |
| load even more slowly. Designing | | | | be duplicated with tables. For example you can use a |
| CSS-based web pages will speed up the loading of | | | | background image for a header then place your |
| your pages considerably because the styles are all | | | | content over it using the H1 tag for better page |
| contained in one style sheet.4. Small file size. CSS will | | | | optimization.11. Way of the future. The future of the |
| reduce the file size of your html document. If you | | | | web is moving towards better accessibility with web |
| look at a web page that is designed with CSS you | | | | sites so they can be viewed by as many people as |
| will notice that the size is very small compared to | | | | possible. |
| one designed with lots of tables. This | | | | This may be enforced in future web standards |
| also helps reduce load times.5. Reduce clutter. CSS | | | | therefore if your web site is still using tables or |
| allows you to get rid of a lot of extraneous html | | | | deprecated tags it may become obsolete or |
| code therefore making your site code neater and | | | | disappear from the search engines. |
| cleaner. This makes it easy to alter the code if you | | | | This could really hurt your business.12. Print friendly. |
| need to make edits.6. Eliminate javascript. Many | | | | When a user chooses to print a web page an |
| people surf the web with javascript turned off | | | | alternative CSS document can be called up. This |
| because they don't want to be vulnerable to viruses | | | | document can specify that formatting, images and |
| or allow pop-ups. This means that the beautiful | | | | navigation disappear and just the page content |
| javascript navigation you produced will not | | | | appear on the printed version.See creating print style |
| be seen. You can often achieve the same affect | | | | sheets your site is still mostly using tables for its |
| with CSS navigation. These allow for rollovers and | | | | design, you may want to consider doing a redesign. It |
| other pretty affects and are much more user | | | | may take a lot of work now but if you leave it for |
| friendly.7. Accessibility. If you use CSS2's aural | | | | too long |
| properties it provides information to non-sighted | | | | it will be MUCH MORE work plus will be missing out |
| users and voice-browser users. The CSS2 "media | | | | on all the benefits of CSS outlined in the points |
| types" (used with @media rules) allow authors and | | | | mentioned above. |