If i put text into the cell, it still collapses without retaining its witdth - I take it I have to use images to keep it reliably from collapsing? strange that such a basic layout can't be coded in html??
Yes but it still collapses - it appears that i have to place an image in the table data element of a fixed width in order to keep its width fixed as I collapse my browser window - is that correct?
I had a similar problem when specifiying table widths in CSS - I then realised I needed to add 'px' after the width. I always thought that was optional, but it made a huge difference.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Untitled</title>
<style type="text/css">
<!--
table {background:#eee;width:100%;}
table td.left {
width:220px;
background:#ddd;
}
-->
</style>
</head>
<body>
<table><tr><td class="left">This is the first td</td><td>and this the second</td></tr></table>
</body>
</html>