Copy the part within the quotes, and use that as the color designation. The other form is supported only by Netscape and a handful of other browsers, so there are no guarantees. But it is much simpler. Click the Add Row or Add Column button in the Editor. To delete, select a cell in the row or column which you want to delete, and click the Remove Row or Remove column in the object editor.
Many browsers simply choose to ignore empty table cells.
Therefore, if there is nothing in the cell it will not appear, even if you have sized it, given a background color of image, or spanned it across adjoining cells. Usually, the only thing you need to do is put a invisible character, such as a non-breaking space, into the cell. To type a non-breaking space, hold down the option key while hitting the space bar.