Is using CSS instead of tables really a good idea?

No problems with people using older browsers or disabling it like JS?

[HughMungus]

Yes, I am a newb.

TIA

[unknownsoldier]

Why not design in both and see what you are happier with?

There are technical considerations such as old browser support for pure CSS designs, which can make it fiddlier than using tables to get that perfect design.

It depends on how much and what sort of content needs to be displayed. If you have a lot of lists to display then tables can be easier for the page lay out. If you have minimal text and a few images then a pure CSS could be the way forward.

Make sure you check HTML and CSS with w3.org's validators and you will be on the right track.

[HughMungus]

There are technical considerations such as old browser support for pure CSS designs

This is what I'm mainly worried about.

In fact, I never even know about CSS positioning until I setup a blog and saw that that's what they use.

[tedster]

I heartily suggest you dive in and experiment. Whether you use what you learn now or use it later, it will only help you.

In fact, you can learn so much that I'm forever grateful I waded in. It was probably the best single professional step I've ever taken. I understand HTML better, I understand browsers better, and I understand the difference between print and the web MUCH better.

This has influenced my design choices, my consultations with clients, and my ability to get better ranking on search engines -- even when I use tables. The pages I create communicate more clearly to the end user, and their usability often gets high praise.

Although I won't win any design awards, I'm not looking for that. An award will not buy me dinner, but traffic that converts and brings in a good ROI, that will buy my groceries and then some.

[PatrickDeese]

I put off learning CSS for 3 years, even though I did use a mini stylesheet to make my links have a background color on hover.

Finally I got brave enough to dive in full on & have been using it for about 6 months.

My first designs were still table / css hybrids, but even that is being abandoned for full on CSS layout.

Go for it.

[g1smd]

If you have a load of tabular data then a table is still the best thing to put it in.

If you are talking about positioning parts of your content, then try both. I still prefer tables, but I'm going to move to CSS positioning next year.

[kyr01]

CSS positioning has many advantages over tables, and tables are supposed to be reserved for tabular data.
Having said this, you are probably going to use a mixed approach for a while, since there are few situations where CSS positioning is somehow less 'natural' than tables. Take your time to learn, and you'll end up using CSS for everything except tabular data.
As for browsers, you should be able to deal with most of them without troubles. If a browser doesn't support css, your page will be seen as a simple text document: usually not too bad, as long as your html/xhtml code has proper structure.

[Nick_W]

You'll not look back once you've seen the light [webmasterworld.com] ;)

Nick