Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Three-Column Layouts

Three-column layouts are fundamentally the same as the previous two-column examples; they just require some extra planning for the third column. These examples use length values instead of percentages to create fixed layouts. In addition, padding, borders, and margins are added in one of the examples, requiring a fix for a well-known browser bug. Browser bugs and fixes are briefly addressed here but are covered in detail in Chapter 25. Again, these examples assume that the main content column will be longer than the side columns, which of course, is not always the case in the real world. It may be necessary to make adjustments to these examples to make them work for your content, but they are a good push in the right direction.