If you have any issues in the future feel free to start a new thread.

Many thanks for all your help with this, kathrynwp. It's very much appreciated.

When you added the padding to the cells, did you have to manually insert 'padding:2px;'

Yes.

is there a quicker way of doing this?

I tested a number of methods on your post but couldn't find a quicker method.

Also, does the padding create extra space on the top and bottom of each cell as well as the left and right?

Yes. If you want padding only on the left and right you can modify the code to this: padding: 0 2px;

Is there any chance that a future WordPress update might deal with this problem and return my tables to the format under which they were originally displayed?

Unless I can find the root of the problem, unfortunately not. I examined the code in both your posts but wasn't able to see a difference. Perhaps you could create two smaller test posts (you can leave them as drafts) so there is a bit less code to look through. Again, one with a post that doesn't have the correct padding, and one that does - but perhaps with only a single table this time. I'd be glad to give it another try.

Also, does the padding create extra space on the top and bottom of each cell as well as the left and right? The table that you amended is noticeably taller than previously.

Is there any chance that a future WordPress update might deal with this problem and return my tables to the format under which they were originally displayed?

I added padding:2px; to the cells in your first table so you can see how this looks.

A much more efficient way to style your tables would be by separating your styles from your table code, as you can see in the example I gave just above. If you have any questions, just let me know.

In your CSS you can add something like this:

.mycell1 {<br /> width: 100px;<br /> }

Then your table might look like this:

<table><br /> <tr><td class="mycell1">data</td><td class="mycell1">data</td><br /> </tr><br /> </table>

Here are some CSS basics you might find helpful:

http://en.support.wordpress.com/custom-design/css-basics/

If you need further help with your tables, please start a new thread so we can assist you there.

New format: http://testcricketleague.wordpress.com/2001-year-overview-new-format/

Old format: testcricketleague.wordpress.com/2001-year-overview-old-format/

Do let me know if you need any further info. Many thanks.

Fill colours, gridlines and cell alignment have now returned, but the spacing is still awry, with several of the columns in my tables squeezed together. Before the problem, there was some space either side of the text in these cells, which made for a far more attractive and readable layout.

Thanks!

As a better alternative to using obsolete tags, you can always add inline CSS to td tags - such as:

<td style="background-color: #000">data</td>

If you have the Custom CSS upgrade, an even better method is to define a class in your stylesheet, and then apply it to your td, such as:

.special {
background-color: #000
}

<td class="special">data</td>

Keeping your styles separate from your HTML code is best practice.

The thing is this, I need to build a table with a bit of control over the cell sizes. This is a small example of what I'd like to do, but WordPress seems to ignore things like borders and column widths.

<table border="2">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td> Mandarin, Simp.</td>
<td>  电话 </td>
<td> diànhuà</td>
</tr>
</tbody>

Thanks for any insight you have.

Or check on this tag to see if there are new developments:
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/tags/html-table-tags

Please note that this is a community forum and so for the most part we are volunteers answering your questions. We don't know what staff is up to behind the scenes.

Or highlight the code with the code tag above the comment box.

When you say that you'll keep us all up to date once you know something further, how does that work? I'm fairly new to WordPress myself. I didn't know about the changes you were making, so I'm not sure how I would know about the solution. Thanks.

Hi all,
A change that we made last week is causing the Visual Editor to strip out attributes on table tags.

To work around this for now, you will need to use the Text editor on any posts where you have tables. If you switch back to the Visual Editor before saving changes on those posts, the attributes will be deleted, so please make sure you save your changes if you switch back to using the Visual Editor.

The developers do know about this, and we'll keep you all up to date once we know anything further. http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/html-tags-changed-from-visual-to-text?replies=7#post-1040004

Recently, however, the visual editor has started to represent the HTML tables using a rather basic, visually unappealling format - quite different to the format used previously (for example, I've lost both the alignment of text within columns and fill colour of cells). The tables already uploaded to the site are fine, but if I make any edits to these pages then the tables will take on the new format.

Has there been a recent update to the editor that has caused this? And is there a way I can switch back to the previous formatting system?