RFC 1942 (rfc1942) - Page 1 of 30

HTML Tables

Network Working Group                                         D. Raggett
Request for Comments: 1942                                           W3C
Category: Experimental                                          May 1996


                              HTML Tables

Status of this Memo

   This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
   community.  This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any
   kind.  Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested.
   Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

   The HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a simple markup language used
   to create hypertext documents that are portable from one platform to
   another. HTML documents are SGML documents with generic semantics
   that are appropriate for representing information from a wide range
   of applications. This specification extends HTML to support a wide
   variety of tables. The model is designed to work well with associated
   style sheets, but does not require them. It also supports rendering
   to braille, or speech, and exchange of tabular data with databases
   and spreadsheets. The HTML table model embodies certain aspects of
   the CALS table model, e.g. the ability to group table rows into
   thead, tbody and tfoot sections, plus the ability to specify cell
   alignment compactly for sets of cells according to the context.

Table of Contents

   Recent Changes  ................................................. 1
   Brief Introduction  ............................................. 2
   Design Rationale  ............................................... 5
   Walkthrough of the Table DTD  ................................... 8
   Recommended Layout Algorithms  ................................. 23
   HTML Table DTD  ................................................ 26
   References  .................................................... 29
   Security Considerations  ....................................... 30
   Author's Address  .............................................. 30

Recent Changes

   This specification extends HTML to support tables. The table model
   has grown out of early work on HTML+ and the initial draft of HTML3.
   The earlier model has been been extended in response to requests from
   information providers for improved control over the presentation of
   tabular information:



Raggett                       Experimental