The information here is out of date. But don't worry. Part 2 HTML tables let you position images, text, and other elements precisely on your Web pages. This month, we'll cover additional HTML table tricks and show you how to use them for more advanced Web page layouts. Let's begin by looking at Figure 1.
Many Web sites use tables to present text in columns, just like newspapers and magazines do.
It's much easier for a reader to digest information presented in narrow columns. And even if you don't want to use multiple columns on your pages, you may want to format your text in a single narrow column. Figure 1 shows this single-column approach. It's an easy, effective way to present text, especially long articles. Without this attribute, the cell contents would be centered vertically, leaving unwanted space at the top and bottom.