Historically, web pages have been of variable width so the browsers could adapt them to the size and resolution of the monitors. However, with the advent of larger and higher resolution monitors, variable width pages are becoming harder to read due to long line-lengths. To solve this problem, web designers are creating pages that have shorter line lengths by creating pages that have fixed widths; the designers control the line length by specifying particular widths for the pages.

Tables Create Fixed Widths

This page that you are reading has a width of 600 pixels. The page is thus compatible with older monitors. The page resides inside a one-cell table, and the table width is set at 600 pixels. The table has a border so you can see the edges of the page, and it is centered in the screen. Because the width of the page is smaller than the resolution of the monitor, there are left and right margins on the page. The width of the margins depends on the monitor resolution, but the data portion of the page does not vary with monitor resolution.

Transparent gif Files Create Indentations

The paragraphs in this page are indented 25 pixels, and this indentation is caused by a transparent gif file that is inserted at the beginning of each paragraph. The file is 25 pixels wide and 1 pixel high and. The indention used with this paragraph has a border so you can see the gif file.

Alternate Text Descriptions

In order to provide compatibility with the Lynx browser and with text-to-speech converters, the transparent gif files have empty alternate text descriptions (alt). See the page in this site on Graphics Files for more information about alternate text descriptions.

Use CSS

A better way to create margins is with the use of CSS.

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