Tables have always been popular for simplifying the layout of information on web pages. Style sheets, however, are replacing the idea of a tabulated format. Tables are still popular, though, as they present a very popular layout for design-friendly interfaces. So the need for some kind of combination between plain table tags and styles has arisen.
Learn to Use HTML Tables and DIV tags Quickly - The Use of the DIV tag (Page 3 of 4 )
Like tables, <DIV> tags allow for compositional treatment to the web page. There is a line break between <DIV> tags that allows for more spacing and composition, though that's okay. The idea is that you can style each <DIV> tag differently to suit your design. Style sheet coders like this idea as a mixture of styles can be introduced into the page.
It looks like this when placed:
The text is here.
Or the text is here and looks like this.
This is very basic but what is happening culminates in stylized block elements separated and therefore hosted properly. A table could be used with no borders, and simple changes to the font style. Combining DIV tags with tables, however, leads to a nice design.
The code for the above example is:
<html>
<body>
<div style="color:#00CC00;">The text is here</div>
<div style="color:#000066;">Or the text is here and looks like this</div>
</body>
</html>
That is just an illustration as the proper usage would look like this for a text section:
Another example of proper usage is with alignment in text:
<div align="center">
<h3>Hi, now the text is here</h3>
<p><img src="somesillyimage.jpg">
<h4>I know that the text can be here too and for <a href="http:www.somesite.org/">hyperlinks</a></h4>
</div>
So, the <div> tag will give many advantages to designers who are using styles more and wanting to move away from just plain tables. The <div> tag complements the style properties of a style sheet.
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