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While I was designing a form, I found that designing a form using tables can be much easier and simpler instead of using CSS.

But, is this a good technique to use?

Will it affect the flexibility of the website later?

dsgriffin
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balaji_sr
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    some reasons why it isnt such a good idea - http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/topic/159157-the-evil-of-tables/ – Jagmag Sep 15 '12 at 11:13
  • possible duplicate of [ for layouts is evil right?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/890850/table-for-layouts-is-evil-right)
    – Jagmag Sep 15 '12 at 11:14
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    I think these two links will help you. [This is Why You Should Use Tables for Forms Layout](http://andrewtokeley.net/archive/2007/09/15/this-is-why-you-should-use-tables-for-forms-layout.aspx) - [Better UI Design: Proper Use of Tables](http://www.noupe.com/how-tos/better-ui-design-proper-use-of-tables.html) – Siamak Motlagh Sep 15 '12 at 11:17

3 Answers3

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HTML is about structure, CSS about design. So if your form semantically is a table, because you have key/value pairs, like "name", "surname", "email", etc. along with the user entered value, simply use a table as structure and design it using CSS.

Shi
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    Additionally, the use of proper – Gregor Sep 15 '12 at 12:06
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I don't see any problems using tables with forms. Using tables to design a website is a bad idea, though.

If you build the table the right way, I don't see why it would make the site non flexible.

MikkoP
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Think about your customer. Are they likely to want to 'tweak' your design over and over either during development or afterwards ?

If so then choose the table-less route using <div>s or <ul><li>. It maybe a bit tougher to get right in the first place but - arguably - much easier to adapt down the line.