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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-03T14:41:50+00:00

After years of working on the backend algorithmic and analytic stuff, I have recently

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After years of working on the backend algorithmic and analytic stuff, I have recently been forced to do some “HTML work”. (And you guys have something called jQuery now, is that right?) Anyhoo, back when I used to do HTML (prior to XHTML days), tables were very very common. Now, I see a deluge of support for “div”s and honorifics such as “table-less!”. To catch up on the years that I missed, what is the reason that divs are preferred over tables? [I recently tried to do a simple two column table (66%,33%) into divs, and the bruises are still fresh.]

I realize that the question may be subjective, so as a specific subquestion: What is the easy and concise div based HTML that renders the following table:

<table>
      <tr>
         <td width="33%">Name</td>
         <td width="67%">Description</td>
     </tr>
     <tr>
         <td>National Hockey League</td>
         <td>A much longer paragraph about the league</td>
    </tr>
</table>
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Tables shouldn’t be used for page layouts because they are:

    • Slow to render as the browser needs to download most, if not all of the table to render it properly

    • They require more HTML then non-table layouts which means slower loading and rendering as well as increased bandwidth usage

    • They can be a nightmare to maintain as they can get complex quickly

    • They can break text copying

    • They negatively affect screenreaders and may make your cone\tent inaccessible to some users

    • They are not as flexible as using proper semantic markup

    • They were never intended to be used for page layouts

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