Tables, and the cells in them, have specific "properties," which you can set as well. For example, you will notice that while there are 3 columns in the center of this table, there seems to be only one column above and below the three. This is done by merging cells. To merge cells, just click in one cell, and drag into the other(s). Then select Table|Merge Cells from the menu.

You might also notice that the text in the left-hand cell of the 3 above is left-justified, while the text in the right-hand cell is righ-justified (unfortunately, you can't justify both sides of any HTML text - maybe someday). This can be done quite easily as well. Just right-click the cell you want to set properties for, and select "Cell Properties" from the menu. Use the "horizontal alighnment" property to align your text left, center, or right. Use the "verticle alignment" property to align text or images top, center, or bottom, as I've done with the 3 cells above (all are top-aligned).

There are a number of other cell properties which you can set. For example, you can set the relative width of the cell in relation to the table. I set all 3 cells to 33% (actually, the one in the middle is 34% - had to make 100, eh?). In most cases, when setting the cell width, you'll want to set the width for an entire column. You can do this by placing your cursor in any cell in the column and selecting Table|Select Column from the menu. Then right-click in any selected cell and select "Cell properties" from the popup menu. You can also work with rows in the same fashion.

To work with the entire table, there are several techniques you can use. You can right-click anywhere in the table and select "Table Properties" from the menu. For example, I set the background color of this table to Black. In addition, you can set the width of a table from this dialog box. I recommend using percentages in all width properties, as the table will resize itself to fit whatever browser, window size, and/or resolution the client has.

You can also set up borders for your table with this dialog box. In this case, I omitted borders. This creates the illusion that you're not using a table at all, but are simply formatting your text and images. Play with the borders controls.

You can use background images as well, but one word of caution: Most versions of Netscape don't support background images for tables, so be prepared for them not to show in Netscape. Be careful to set your table background color and font color to account for the possible absense of a background image.

The other way of setting properties for the entire table is to place your cursor anywhere in the table ans select Table|Select Table from the menu. This can be useful for non-table-specific properties which you want to set for the entire table. For example, I used this to set the font styles for the table.