Table is an excellent way of presenting information, especially when a company wants to cite various prices for its services or products. For instance, some websites require users to sign up different levels of membership in order to access certain exclusive contents. They can present to users the distinct features that each level has to offer in a table-like format. Depending on the content, tables can be good for arranging many other kinds of data for deeper clarity other than pricing.

Creating a table is easy, but organizing data in an easy-to-understand tabular format together with an appealing layout is often challenging. Most of us have came across numerous tables on the net, and some of these can be rather plain-looking ones with no or minimal design whatsoever. However, we are about to show you that tables need not be such uninteresting and boring visual communication. It can be uniquely designed to suit your web content and stand out from the vast array of tables from websites all over the world. Also, we’ve put together a list of useful scripts to help you get the best of of table display.

Examples of Beautiful Tables

Placing data in cells often makes content presentation more organized. Here are some examples on how it’s done beautifully.

Bigcartel

Protoshare

Zen

Ballpark

Crazyegg
This table captures attention by using a ‘pop-up’ design for its cheapest sign-up package.

Formspring
Similar to the Crazyegg example, the table attempts to focus viewers’ attention to the most popular subscription by highlighting it in green.

Livestream

Jepco Storage
This is an interesting way of presenting info in the table: Using icons to signify the storage type of a particular address.

Simplified Building Concepts

Domestika

Basecamp

Fetch

Mint

ExpressionEngine

Wrike

Heroku
Again, the use of creative symbols to illustrate the different packages.

Scripts and Tools to build better Tables

To assist you in your quest for the most presentable and functional table for your site, feel free to take a look at our compilation of links below which contains a number of useful scripts and tools as a guide.

Alternate Row Colors (Zebra Table)

• Zebra Striping in 15 Steps
  Create alternative row colours in 15 steps with jQuery.

  

• jQuery Zebra Table Demo
  Making a Zebra Table by using jQuery.

Sort & Filter Table Data

• Using jQuery to Manipulate and Filter Data
  Setting up tables, creating zebra rows, applying hover effect, filtering data and sorting columns.

  

• HTML Table Filter
  A filter grid bar is added at the top of the desired HTML table. It provides a "filter by column" feature to allow filtering and limits the data displayed within a long table. Works on tables with uneven rows.

  

• Sorttable
  Sorting a table using the DOM (Document Object Model).

  

• Sort ‘n’ Scroll Table Javascript
  The script that allows sorting of tables by merely clicking on a column head.

  

• Tablesorter
  Turn a standard HTML table with THEAD and TBODY tags into a sortable table without refreshing the page. It supports multi-column sorting as well.

  

• TableFilter
  Sorts and filters multiple columns.

  

• TinyTable Javascript Table Sorter
  Alternate row highlighting, header class toggling, auto data type recognition and selective column sorting are available in this script. Other features included are column highlighting, optional pagination, support for links, and date/link parsing.

  

• Unobstrusive Table Sort Script
  Another sorting script for table that provides for multiple columns sorting as well as highlighting of columns.

  

Grid Listing

• Flexigrid – Web 2.0 Javscript Grid for jQuery
  Lightweight data grid that allows resizing of columns. It also features a scrolling data that matches the headers, and uses Ajax to connect to xml-based data source to load contents.

  

• dhtmlxGrid
  An Ajax-enabled JavaScript grid control that supports multiple datasources such as XML, JSON, CSV, JS array, and HTML table.

  

• Extjs Framework GridView3
  Affords standard panel features such as framing, buttons and toolbars.

  

More Useful Scripts

• TableKit
  TableKit is a collection of HTML table enhancements using the Prototype framework. TableKit currently implements row striping, column sorting, column resizing and cell editing using Ajax.

  

• Tablecloth
  By simply adding 2 lines of code to your html page you will have styled and active tables that your visitors will love.

  

• Tree Table
  Replicate a tree table using HTML.

  

Further Resources and Readings

Here’s a few more useful links about table styling.

• CSS Table Gallery – 98 CSS table styles you can download.
• Tutorial: Styling a Table for CSS- Some tricks for styling tables to make them appealing.
• Tables with Style – It might not seem like it but styling tabular data can be a lot of fun.
• Zebra Tables – Altering the appearance of a table to improve the ease of interpreting it.
• Zebra Table Showdown – How to create striped ("Zebra") background for tables.
• Top 10 CSS Table Designs – Ten most easily implemented CSS table designs.