Because HTML provides so little page composition and layout controls, designers found tables a wonderful utility for formatting not only data but also entire pages. When you insert data into a table, the table size adusts to fit the contents into the cell. Thus when you place an image or text into a table, the table will size itself to accomidate the contents. The table below shows the use of the basic table tags. It has an image inserted into a single cell table with 1 row defined and 1 column (data cell) defined.

You define a table using the <TABLE>...</TABLE> tags. Inside these tags you use <TR>...</TR> to define the number of rows. Within the row, you define the number of cells (columns) using <TD>...</TD>. The content that you want to be inside the table is inserted between the <TD>...</TD>. There are many attributes that relate to the <TABLE>, <TR>, and <TD> tags.