Is it valid to have a form tag inside a table tag?

Question

Is it valid to have a form tag inside a table tag? Some documentation links would be appreciated.

Answer 1

<form> is valid inside a <td> element. You can check this sort of thing at http://validator.w3.org. Choose "Validate by direct input", then paste the following HTML:

<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td><form action="test"><div><input type="text"></div></form></td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Under "More options", select "Validate document fragment". This allows you to check a HTML snippet without writing an entire page for it. I use it for checking HTML fragments all the time.

References:

• The TD element
• The FORM element

Answer 2

Putting a form tag inside a table (but outside the rows) was sometimes used to keep the margins of the form to interfere with the layout. It kind of works, but it's invalid code according to the HTML standard.

Use CSS to remove the margin from the form tag instead. Example:

<form ... style="margin:0">

Or preferrably put it in your style sheet.