lucy24 - 5:31 am on Jul 23, 2011 (gmt 0)

In most browsers, cell width is overridden by content width. That means if you set your cell to 200 px wide and all it contains is a bunch of short words or a 100-px picture, fine. But if you've got a 300-px picture or a hyphenless "antidisestablishmentarianism", the cell will become as wide as it needs to be. Conversely, some browsers will flatly refuse to make a cell 200px wide if it has no content (where "no content" means a single   for safety's sake) while all surrounding cells have stuff in them.

In general, forcing cell widths is very iffy. It's one of the rare places where inline CSS sometimes makes a difference.

:: idly wondering if the table-haters would be happier if only CSS would call it, say, "grid layout" ;) ::