Solution Using Tables
For a horizontal line, you can use the background color attribute (BGColor) for a table row like this:
The trick is to use a <BR> element for the table data.
But that line is so fat! (See the image file solution below for a thin horizontal line.)
To make a skinny vertical line, make a skinny column (TD), put a <BR> element in it, and and use the BGColor and Width attributes of the TD element, like this:
| Column one; you would have a bunch of words here so that the table extends across several rows of text. The second column of this table is the one that is set to just 1 pixel wide, its background color is set to brown, and it contains the BR element. | Column three |
| To get an area, you set the width of the second column to something larger than 1, its background color to brown, and put the BR element in it. | Column three |
Solution Using an Image File
The image file is a 1 by 1 pixel file with the color I want.
Here's a colored line made with that file; I use the Width="100%" image attribute to stretch the line horizontally across the page; note it extends to 100% of the boundaries of table data element on this page:
Here is a line that will stretch to 33% of the available width:
Resize your browser window to convince yourself of the stretchiness of these lines.
So why not stretch a colored line vertically? It doesn't seem to work correctly within the table of this page. Here's 33% of the available height:
That looks like a single dot on my browser.
So why not make an area? Again, it doesn't seem to work correctly within the table of this page. Here's 33% of the available height and width:
That looked like a single dot on my Netscape < 3.0 browser, but with Netscape 3.0, it looks like an area.
But in a file with the images outside of a table, it seems to work. (I am using a Netscape browser).