Tableless Web Design in CSS: 2 & 3 columns with Header & Footer

admin — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:14:48 +0000

Hello Folks,

You know the web design has already transferred from the table based design to tableless design. This does not you will never use tables. What it means that using table in building website structure is getting rare. But why do people go for tableless design? Although there are many reasons, the most important reason is you save a lots of bandwidth by coding cleaner and fewer lines. Tableless web design is fun too!

But I must admit that it is a very easy tutorial for anyone. My target audience is those who are new to website design and wish to start designing in tableless format.

If you do not understand the whole article at the first time, my suggestion is you read it again.

OK. Let us start. Here we go:

2 Column tableless page design

Step One: A 2 column complete page coding

First take a look at the page code below. You can see the output here: 2 Column Page Output

I suggest you go to this output page, open the source code and take a look for a better indent view.

2 Column CSS Example

This is the first navigation link

This is the second navigation link

This is the third navigation link

This is the fourth navigation link

This is the fifth navigation link

Your page content goes here.

In the following steps, I am going to clarify what I have done and how.

Step One: The CONTAINER div is holding the whole page content

First of all, please note that we have kept all our content elements inside a container DIV element:

And here is the CSS for this section:

#container
{
width:775px; margin:0 auto;
}

Notice that this is a fixed width design of 775 pixels and the part margin:0 auto; sets the content area in the page center alignment.

Step Two: The HEADER AND FOOTER

Now we have three main areas inside our container div and there they are:

In the header div section, we only put a two line text and in the footer div section, we put just the copyright information.

Here is the CSS for header div:

#header
{
width:100%; height:100px; background:#990000;
}

Note that we are clearly specifying the width and height of the header section. Sometimes you may find that this section is not appearing. It may happen if you do not mention the values for height and/or width clearly.

And here is the CSS for footer div:

#footer
{
width:100%; height:50px; background:#330033;
clear:both;
}

We clearly specified the values for height and width again. But specially notice the clear:both; part. Why do we write this line? Because we are using floating feature. When we use clear:both;for a div area, it floats left by default and does not mess up with any other div area.

Simple. Huh?

Step Three: The CONTENT div

We have put our two columns in the content div:

And here is the CSS for content div:

#content
{
clear:both;
}

Notice that we are using clear:both; coding to avoid any mess up with the header. If you do not clear your div, it will automatically try to be positioned side by side with the preceeding div (provided it gets enough space there).

Step Four: The two columns in the CONTENT div

Inside our content div element, we have two div element and those are leftColumn div and rightColumn div.

Here is the CSS for leftColumn div:

#leftColumn
{
width:275px; height:300px; background:#000000;
text-align:left;
float:left;
}

And here is the CSS for the rightColumn div:

#rightColumn
{
width:500px; height:300px; background:#003300;
text-align:left; color:#CCCCCC;
float:left;
}

You specially need to notice the following two things

1. We are using float feature for both of them and floating both of them to left.
2. Add the witdh of the leftColumn and rightColumn and that is 775 pixels (225 px + 500 px) that is exactly equal to the width of our container div (775 px).

What I am trying to say is: when you float two DIVs to the same direction (i.e. left in our case), they take position side by side as like two columns. But the total width of both of them must be equal to or less than the width of the div they are positioned.

Step five: Putting something in the left and right columns

We assign some text in the left and right columns and thus we are done.

3 Column tableless page design

Step One: A 3 column complete page coding

First take a look at the page code below. You can see the output here: 3 Column Page Output

I suggest you go to this output page, open the source code and take a look for a better indent view.

3 Column CSS Example

This is the first navigation link

This is the second navigation link

This is the third navigation link

This is the fourth navigation link

This is the fifth navigation link

Your page content goes here.

Your right column content goes here.

Explanation for the 3 column design:

When you understand 2 column design, it is very easy to understand the three column design too since they are very similar. Everything else are as they were but now we have three columns in the content div:

Left column CSS:

#leftColumn
{
width:200px; height:300px; background:#000000;
text-align:left;
float:left;
}

Middle column CSS:

#middleColumn
{
width:375px; height:300px; background:#FFFFFF;
text-align:left; color:#000000;
float:left;
}

Right column CSS:

#rightColumn
{
width:200px; height:300px; background:#003300;
text-align:left; color:#CCCCCC;
float:left;
}

Well. Notice that (1) we are floating them all to the left direction to keep them side by side in column style and (2) the total width of all the three columns is (200 px + 375 px + 200 px) or 757 pixels which is exactly equal to the width of the container div (775 pixels).

#container
{
width:775px; margin:0 auto;
}

Thus, you can make as many columns as you want. But make sure the total width of all your columns is smaller than or equal to the available space (width).

I tries my best to keep this post as easy as possible. If you are not clear or do not understand the whole article at the first reading, I suggest you giving a second reading.

Thanks for reading.

Learning Is Fun » Web Design

Tableless Web Design in CSS: 2 & 3 columns with Header & Footer

2 Column tableless page design

2 Column CSS Example

3 Column tableless page design

3 Column CSS Example