Before knowing the advantages or dis-advantages of table or Div, one need to know why web designer need to use and how to integrate? Position of each HTML control on web page is defined in pixels position relevance to web page. So when you need to put specific element, you need to know the exact pixel location rather than visual position. Some times when two or more HTML control or components are relevant with each other, we need to assign one single group for programming or giving style or position, with use of table; we can accurately decide the position of those two components and also assign some common rules to components which are related with each other.
Whether you use table or DIV, the basic objective was to define the structure which holds the different objects of website in relative position with each other the way you want. As different elements like navigation menu, content presentation box, header, footer all need to organized and placed in structure which creates good visual look of website. in previous time in 90’s, designer has to write code for different tags and controls individually, with use of table or DIV, it was easier to group similar elements and need to write coding for one table or DIV used and which all elements integrated in table or DIV inherits that coding.
Use of table was being considered as an old way as it was taking much time to load. If you have used nested tables like one table for entire layout and nested table for different components in web page, it adds extra time for loading which wasn’t considered as an ideal practice. Furthermore, with prospect to flexibility in programming, designer needs to make changes individually in each table which they have used in design.
To overcome above advantages of table, DIV tags gets introduced to fulfill the same objectives that of use of tables. If DIV tag used with combination of CSS, it was much easier to modify the design of DIV with modification in CSS instead of programming individually. Still when there is a need to display certain types of data with robust structure, designer still prefer to use table instead of DIV. taking benefits of DIV tag, it was require to have good knowledge of CSS to use it efficiently where in case of table, it was easier to define coding with use of basic table HTML tags, that was the only reason some people still prefer to use table in certain situation compare to DIV.
Thus, there are both pros and cons of using Div and table, as per your requirement and frequency at which you need to implement design; you should choose one which is most appropriate. As per our experience as New York Web design service provider, we have observed that use of DIV is common choice.
