Building a Web Site Part II Absolute Positioning of Graphics

Throughout the web building courses, we've used tables to help position text and graphics.  With invisible tables (borders = 0) this technique is really transparent to the viewer of our pages.

• Insert the image somewhere in the web page.
• "Select" the image.
• Click the "Absolute Position" icon (the farthest right icon on the tool excerpt shown above).
• Use the mouse to drag the graphic to the desired absolute position.

Why wouldn't we do this always?  The graphic's location is measured from the upper left corner of the web page to an absolute position on the screen.  One or more of the following problems may arise if the graphic is positioned in an absolute location:

• If the window size of the viewing computer doesn't match the window size when the graphic was positioned, the image may appear in the wrong location relative to text or even be off the page.
• If the browser does not have the same fonts or sizes of text, the contents of the page may not be positioned exactly as with the original page and the graphic could end up covering some of the other text on the page.
• If a different brand of browser is used, all bets are off.

It may be much more work, but positioning graphics using "brute force" with tables is still probably the preferable way for a more professional appearance and reliable display.

This site copyrighted (2005) by Dr. Blake West - Please credit when linking to the site!
Kansas NEA - 715 SW 10th Ave.  Topeka, KS  66612.