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A Page Too Wide

The following content was intentionally formatted in a table that is too wide for your current screen resolution. Notice the horizontal scroll bar below the browser window. Isn't a real pain to scroll back and forth as you read the text in a web page? Well designed web pages should never have horizontal scroll bars unless the content being displayed cannot be shown any other way.

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

The problem of oversized pages can also result from tables containing multiples columns with widths set in pixels. If the combined column widths are greater than the browser's display window, you can experience the same result as shown above. The columns in the following table have widths of 150, 75, 200, 150, 75, and 400 pixels, respectively.

Name Life Dates Birthplace Political Party Term of Office Major Events
George Washington 02/22/1732-12/14/1799 Westmoreland County, Virginia None 1788-1797
  • First U.S. Census was started in August, 1790. It was completed 18 months later with a count of 3,929,214.
  • The Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791.
  • The Whiskey Rebellion erupted in western Pennsylvania in 1794.
  • The Jay Treaty was signed and ratified in 1795 ending hostilities between Great Britain and the United States.
John Adams 10/30/1735-07/04/1826 Braintree, Massachusetts Federalist 1797-1801
  • XYZ Affair brought United States to the brink of war with France in 1797.
  • The United States Marine Corps was established as a separate branch of military in 1798.
  • The Alien and Sedition Acts were passed in 1798.
  • He became the first president to occupy the White House in 1800.
Thomas Jefferson 04/13/1743-07/04/1826 Goochland County, Virginia Democratic-Republican 1801-1809
  • The United States Military Academy was established at West Point in 1802.
  • Jefferson approved the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, doubling the territory held by the country.
  • The principle of judicial review was established in 1803 when the Supreme Court voted thumbs down in Marbury vs. Madison.
  • The Lewis and Clark expedition to explore the western territory began in 1804.

An alternative to the above is to set the table width to 100% of the available window size and then specify column widths, in percentage, for those that may need more room than the browser is allotting them. In the following table, only the last column has a width specified, in this case 30%.

Name Life Dates Birthplace Political Party Term of Office Major Events
George Washington 02/22/1732-12/14/1799 Westmoreland County, Virginia None 1788-1797
  • First U.S. Census was started in August, 1790. It was completed 18 months later with a count of 3,929,214.
  • The Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791.
  • The Whiskey Rebellion erupted in western Pennsylvania in 1794.
  • The Jay Treaty was signed and ratified in 1795 ending hostilities between Great Britain and the United States.
John Adams 10/30/1735-07/04/1826 Braintree, Massachusetts Federalist 1797-1801
  • XYZ Affair brought United States to the brink of war with France in 1797.
  • The United States Marine Corps was established as a separate branch of military in 1798.
  • The Alien and Sedition Acts were passed in 1798.
  • He became the first president to occupy the White House in 1800.
Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826 Virginia Democratic-Republican 1801-1809
  • The United States Military Academy was established at West Point in 1802.
  • Jefferson approved the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, doubling the territory held by the country.
  • The principle of judicial review was established in 1803 when the Supreme Court voted thumbs down in Marbury vs. Madison.
  • The Lewis and Clark expedition to explore the western territory began in 1804.