Replacement for HTML Tables

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  eliteblogadmin · Member · Feb 11, 2011 at 4:11 pm

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  So – the powers-that-be do not want to pay for the upgrades to wordpress.com (to add custom CSS for example). Dumb decision as CSS is so much better to work with.

  But I find that typing in information to our blog to be a pain when creating tables using HTML. Does anyone have a better solution to show some columns of information (typically two)? Here is an example:

  http://elitegym.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/session-times-for-the-2011-east-coast-classic/

  HTML tables in wordpress.com do not format nicely (column widths for example), at least with the theme we are using.

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  panaghiotisadam · Member · Feb 11, 2011 at 5:35 pm

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  Yes it’s the theme you’re using.

  For example, its CSS imposes 24px of left/right padding to each cell. If you don’t have the paid CSS upgrade and you need to decrease the padding, you have to write each opening td tag this way:
  <td style="padding: 6px 24px;">
  (Change the numbers to lower ones.)

  Other example here:
  https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/in-a-table-i-still-cant-align-images-and-text?replies=5#post-543208

  A general note on HTML: you don’t need separate tags for multiple operations on the same text. For instance, instead of this:
  <strong><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span style="color:#cc3366;">TEXT</span></span></strong>
  you write this:
  <span style="font-weight:bold;text-decoration:underline;color:#cc3366;">TEXT</span>
  And if that’s the content of a regular table cell, you don’t even write that inside td tags, you write:
  <td style="font-weight:bold;text-decoration:underline;color:#cc3366;">TEXT</td>

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  eliteblogadmin · Member · Feb 13, 2011 at 10:03 pm

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  Thanks.

  A lot of the extraneous tags appears to get added by wordpress.com. I typically use only one span tag. When switching from html view to visual view ( and editing in the latter) wordpress appears to add the extra span tags.

  Are there any tools to auto-create an html with a set of data so that I can stop copying and pasting?

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  timethief · Member · Feb 13, 2011 at 10:13 pm

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  Are there any tools to auto-create an html with a set of data so that I can stop copying and pasting?

  The editor we have TinyMCE does not have the component for creating HTML tables in it. The choices aside from manually dcreating thema dn experiencing what you have experienced are using online generators or using Windows Live Writer.

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  timethief · Member · Feb 13, 2011 at 10:15 pm

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  I apologize for not proofreading before clicking submit.
  The choices aside from manually creating them and experiencing what you have experienced are using online generators like http://www.ahfb2000.com/tablemakertool2.php?sub=gen_form but you still have to copy and paste, or using Windows Live Writer.

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  eliteblogadmin · Member · Feb 15, 2011 at 2:52 am

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  Thanks for the update (and no worries on the typos).

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  timethief · Member · Feb 15, 2011 at 4:27 am

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  You’re welcome. :)