The use of structuring tags for the formatting of paragraphs can be very disturbing. HTML 4 integrates the idea of style sheets allowing for the layout of the page to be completely separated from the structural information.
Especially the utilisation of tables to layout the page can lead to difficulties. The separation between the columns is not always obvious for users who do not have an «overview» of the document. If possible, it would be better to avoid using tables to increase the margins or for any other presentation effect which can be obtained by the use of a style. If no other solution is available (double columns, separation from a menu...) the purpose of the table should be defined in the «summary» attribute. Furthermore, it is very important to ensure that interdependent text portions should not be divided in several cells, in order to enable the reading of a table line after line (the text should be understandable without the HTML table formatting elements like — «TABLE», «TR», «TD» — and the different constituents of the table should not be mixed).
Next : Use of style sheets