fixing IE issues for table cell fixed width and mis-alignment

[jonsan32]

My page http://www.thepoetryofjonsanders.com/ (through blogger.com) works and looks perfectly good in every browser, except for IE. What's the best fix for ensuring the fixed table widths for each cell? And how can I fix the text-alignment as well. I've included all the html I'm using in the linked file below, a suggestion I found but don't understand from some website, and screenshots at the bottom of this post. Thanks in advance!


The html I'm using:
http://s2.sigmirror.com/files/64673_behe9/poetryhtml.txt

In some browsers you have to explicitly set the column widths for all
columns. It is a good idea to use both width=20 and
style="width:20px" to ensure cross-browser. Also make sure that the
total widths of all columns add up to the width of the table. When
creating a simple table with no rowspan or colspan properties, you can
set the column widths in the first row and save the extra bandwidth of
assigning it to every column in every row.

from http://bytes.com/topic/html-css/answers/95311-fixed-cell-width-table-does-not-work-ie



screenshot of my page in IE (What I do not want)



screenshot of my page in Chrome, Firefox, and Safari (How I want it to look)

[Computer Hope Admin]

Checked out the site in IE and looks like you got it resolved.

[jonsan32]

Actually, I just upgraded my IE and that fixed the width issue. I don't mind the people unwilling to upgrade being out of luck, but the alignment is still not the way I'd like it. It's centering within a centered table, when it should be to the left of that centered table. Do I need to add any extra closing or opening tags? Or is that just a limitation of IE? Again, in all the other browsers it's perfect.

Thanks!

[Computer Hope Admin]

I took some time and went through your code. Honestly it had a lot of HTML errors, all of which could be causing this issue with earlier browsers. I set your row to 35% 30% 35% widths, which should correct the error and got rid of the several duplicate </td> tags and other errors. Attached is a cleaned up version that should work.

You may also want to consider learning more about CSS so the <font tags can be replaced with CSS attributes instead. But what I've done should fix it. Unfortunately don't have an older browser to test it in without getting my 98 machine back up and the site I normally use to check it has a 45 minute wait to check in older IE versions.



[recovering disk space - old attachment deleted by admin]

[jonsan32]

Wow, no human being can give you anything greater than a piece of their time here on earth. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[Computer Hope Admin]

You're welcome.