Page 3 : Padding, spacing, borders.

If you make a table and select it, then look at the inspector, you'll see these options:

Option 1 lets you specify the height and width of the table in pixels or percentages, or leave it at 'auto'. The advantage of percentages is that the table will expand or contract to fit the browser window - 100% if you want to fill the window side to side. Height is a bit more problematic and can be unpredictable in different browsers - I usually just specify width.

In section 2 you can give your table a background colour - just drag a colour chip across from the colour palette and drop it into the colour box. If you want white, just check the box.

Very important - you won't see the colour until you fill up your table with content - more about empty table cells later. Short version = bad news.

Padding puts an inner margin of blank space into every cell, top, bottom, right and left. If you specify '2' the content in every cell will stop 2 pixels short of each edge. Padding refers to the whole table, you can't set it for one cell (without getting into css).

Spacing puts the amount you choose between cells. On the right is a table with a border of 1, padding of 5 and spacing of 10. You can see the background colour of the table - height and width of the table are left at 'auto'.

The best thing to do is experiment with these settings - don't forget to put something in every cell.

You can give your table a background image (4 on the diagram) by pointing and shooting to an image inside your website folder. If the image you choose is small, it will tile or repeat to give a textured background. There's a Netscape 4 complication here though .. keep reading, it needs a page to itself.

You must have content in every cell - please note, a background image does not count as content.

Area 3, align, is only used if you want to put your table beside another table, some text or an image. Place it just left of the other object or before the first character of the text and choose to align left or right - I find the other options unreliable.

Tab-Text - if you have data to import it needs to be a tab-separated text file, which you can export from another application. Just start in the top left cell and Golive will put the data into the correct number of cells.

Area 1 - vertical alignment specifies whether the content in a cell is at the top, bottom or in the middle (which is the default).

Horizontal alignment controls where the content appears horizontally.

If you now add rows, they will normally inherit these alignments.

Area 3 - colour a cell independently (remember, you need content).

Area 4 - set the width and height of a cell. The width of a cell will apply to a whole column, height will affect the whole row.

Area 5 - put a background image in just one cell

It is extremely advisable to leave one row with no spanning - that is, one cell in every column, like the bottom row. Similarly, it's a very good idea to have one column, like the rightmost one, with a cell in every row.

A bit strange - if you have two columns, set to 50% each, and you make a cell span 2 columns, its width will still appear as 50% - don't try to change it, it isn't wrong, that's just how it is.

We obviously need some invisible content instead of those little x's, and we'll fake a coloured border .... page 4