inserting a cell into a table layout causes the tableheight to increase

[sittinginthesun]

Hello and a merry Xmas to all from Spain !

I will apologise in advance for my question, but i havent been able to find
the answer anywhere (i suspect it is very easy) and it is driving me Loco. I am
a newbie to Dreamweaver.

I have a very simple page layout with essentially three tables in the centre
of the page for my template. Left hand table for a menu, centre table for
content, and a right hand table for ads. My problem is that i want to use cells
for a very simple static menu layout, however when i insert more than 1 cell 1
under another, the laft hand table increases its height size by the height size
of the inserted cell.
This then throws the layout out and causes me all sorts of problems.
My hopefully very simple question therefore is how can i insert cells into a
layout table without increasing the size of the layout table.
Many thanks in advance.

[Murray *TMM*]

You cannot. That's how tables work. Add more content and the table expands
vertically to hold it. What you can do is to make the alignment of the cell
that is expanding set its contents right at the top with the CSS style -

vertical-align:top;

or with the HTML attribute 'valign="top"'

You would put the former into your stylesheet, in a rule for that particular
cell, and the latter directly into the <td> tag for the cell itself, e.g.,

<td valign="top"....

If more than one cell is involved in this expansion, then just read this -

I believe the problem you are having can be simplified if you consider this
example -

Put a 2 row by 2 column table on the page. Merge the two right hand cells
into a single column. Put an image into each left cell, and you will see
that they merge vertically seamlessly. Now begin to add content to the
merged cell on the right and you will see that at some point you will have
forced the two left cells to begin to split apart vertically. The more
content you add to the right, the further apart the two left cells will get.
See what I mean?

To solve the problem, instead of making your page sit in a single table,
have it in several nested tables. You should be able to put a two column
table on the page with a nested table in each column. Put your navigation
in the left nested table, and the
content in the right nested table. Now, changes to either of the inner
table's
structure will not affect either of the inner nested tables.



--
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Team Macromedia Volunteer for Dreamweaver
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
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"sittinginthesun" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:dogg2e$iib$1@forums.macromedia.com...

> Hello and a merry Xmas to all from Spain !
>
> I will apologise in advance for my question, but i havent been able to
> find
> the answer anywhere (i suspect it is very easy) and it is driving me Loco.
> I am
> a newbie to Dreamweaver.
>
> I have a very simple page layout with essentially three tables in the
> centre
> of the page for my template. Left hand table for a menu, centre table for
> content, and a right hand table for ads. My problem is that i want to use
> cells
> for a very simple static menu layout, however when i insert more than 1
> cell 1
> under another, the laft hand table increases its height size by the height
> size
> of the inserted cell.
> This then throws the layout out and causes me all sorts of problems.
> My hopefully very simple question therefore is how can i insert cells into
> a
> layout table without increasing the size of the layout table.
> Many thanks in advance.
>

[sittinginthesun]

Ok thanks that worked a treat. I now understand the concept. Still seems strange that you cannot fix the size of a table so that it doesnt keep increasing its size.
Many thanks though.

[Murray *TMM*]

> Still seems strange that you cannot fix the size of a table so that it

> doesnt keep increasing its size.

Study more HTML. That's how tables work.

--
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Team Macromedia Volunteer for Dreamweaver
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
==================
[url]http://www.dreamweavermx-templates.com[/url] - Template Triage!
[url]http://www.projectseven.com/go[/url] - DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
[url]http://www.dwfaq.com[/url] - DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
[url]http://www.macromedia.com/support/search/[/url] - Macromedia (MM) Technotes
==================


"sittinginthesun" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:dotts4$fin$1@forums.macromedia.com...

> Ok thanks that worked a treat. I now understand the concept. Still seems
> strange that you cannot fix the size of a table so that it doesnt keep
> increasing its size.
> Many thanks though.

[WickedSense]

You can constrain the height of your table to whatever number of pixels, then
add a vertical scroller. I usually use a div element inside the cell to control
everything.

<td width="171" valign="top"><div style="overflow:auto; height:200px;">Insert
a ton of text here</div></td>

Set the height to match your left column. Then you can keep the layout and
scroll extra copy.

It depends on what content you are really trying to add, you may consider
simply creating two tables, the first is you main area, 1 row x 3 columns, then
a <br> tag, then a table 1x1 with footer information. You may want to discuss
what the purpose of adding a your cell is for.