What are the advantages of DIVS over tables?

Question

Hello,

I am curious as to what are all the advantages of using DIV's over Tables and vice versa.

Thanks, XaiSoft

Answer 1

This question gets asked a lot. Take a look at these:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/83073/div-vs-table

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/61250/divs-vs-tables-or-css-vs-being-stupid

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/339210/yet-another-divs-vs-tables-question-forms

Answer 2

Here's another one:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/30251/tables-instead-of-divs/30271

To summarize all those links:

It's not div vs tables as much as it is semantics vs tables. Div and tables (used appropriately) are each only a small part of a semantic layout.

There a number of reasons to use a good semantic layout. Most of them come down to supporting "fringe" browsers, but you might be surprised how many of those there are:

• Screen readers and other accessible browsers (and if you work for the US government, your sites are required to work with these)
• Mobile browsers (smart phones)
• Older browsers (IE6 and earlier, netscape 4.x and earlier). There's still a lot of IE6 out there.
• Google will do a better job indexing and ranking a semantic layout, and the google bot is just another kind of browser.

Also, you'll get better separation of content from function, making it easier to maintain the site between a separate designer and programmer