Before anyone adds new requirements, consider these ones: it has to be emailed and in the printout, the columns should look like tabs above the midle area.
In all seriousness, sometimes requirements are inane, pointless and unreasonable and you just have to push back and say it can't be done.
I think CSS detractors tend to obsess over specific points that tables can handle normally, but often leave out real life situations where obsessive alignment is not necessarily the biggest of the problems. Bias (in this case towards css vs tables, as opposed to web dev in general) is an interesting phenomenon.
Afaik, the exact challenge you're proposing can be done with something like:
.a,.b,.c {position:absolute;} .a {left:0;width:200px;} .b {left:200px;right:200px;} .c {right:0;width:200px;}
Before anyone adds new requirements, consider these ones: it has to be emailed and in the printout, the columns should look like tabs above the midle area.
In all seriousness, sometimes requirements are inane, pointless and unreasonable and you just have to push back and say it can't be done.
I think CSS detractors tend to obsess over specific points that tables can handle normally, but often leave out real life situations where obsessive alignment is not necessarily the biggest of the problems. Bias (in this case towards css vs tables, as opposed to web dev in general) is an interesting phenomenon.