Using HTML tables

Are tables best for presenting financial statements?

[gstick]

I have a site to do that will require a lot of financials. There will be instructive material that would seem to make use of things like colspan etc.

Problem is I have always avoided tables for layout. I've been accustomed to using CSS as much as possible. But I have the impression that tables would be best for financials.

Now impatiently looking to get some knowledge of how to use tables I find a ragged kind of situation where something that should work according to the book doesn't work in the browsers.

Question 1: Are tables best for financial presentations on the web?
Question 2: If the answer to 1 is yes what is the best way to get proficient with tables fast? (if any).

[Robin_reala]

Tables are suitable for data when any chosen datum represents the intersect between two supergroups. Or in English, if you can relate your data to both a column and a row then go for it :)

As for getting good at tables then I'd recommend googling 'accessible tables'. There's lots of features in [X]HTML to help you out, but the basics are just to make sure you've got properly marked up headers ( <th>, <thead> ) and to use a <caption> or summary attribute. Of course, reply back if you want any more specific help.

[edited by: Robin_reala at 4:28 pm (utc) on Feb. 16, 2007]

[Matt Probert]

Tables are best for tabular data.

You can check them using a text-basedbrowser, such as Lynx, tomake sure they are accessible to screen readers, spiders and the like.

Matt

[encyclo]

Yes, tables are ideal for financial data - this is exactly what tables are meant for.

You might find this guide useful:

Accessible Tables [webmasterworld.com]