Im new to the web design game and trying to learn everything i can, ive heard people say stay away from using tables, why is this? What are the advantages/disadvantages and other methods?

Tables are still used. Although some naive individuals will tell you not to use them all. Tables should be used for what they were invented for - tabular data.

The reason HTML tables now have such a bad name is because people began using tables for the skeleton of their designs. Tables are not intended to be used for that. It's just back in the days, styling websites just via CSS was a tricky job, but now, although CSS is still far from perfect, any competent web developer can create a website without even touching a table. The competent developer simply uses HTML tables for tabular data.

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Basically, make sure your markup is semantic.

ie. tables for tabular data, lists for lists, paragraphs for paragraphs and so on.

Tables used for layout make your code bloated, they cause accessibility issues, issues with handheld devices and so on.

Separate your presentation and markup. Use (X)HTML and CSS.

If you have issues with CSS, or simply want to use a nice framework (I am using it for a few sites and very content with it) try out blueprintcss - Google Code

the main reason is browsers have to process everything in your tables twice, if your entire site is one large table it will actually process it twice. The first time to get the structure the second to get the content. If you make your design with out tables, ie with css browsers will only process the page once. Also your page size will but cut way down because there is no longer a need for all the extra lines with <tr><td>.. on them.

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