The CSS spec supports the same display model as HTML tables (using display:table|table-row|table-cell). So if tables work for you, CSS (when fully implemented)

The CSS spec supports the same display model as HTML tables (using display:table|table-row|table-cell). So if tables work for you, CSS (when fully implemented) should work too. Regarding a display order independent of content order: Neither CSS 2.1 nor HTML-tables were designed to support this. Tables only support content-reordering using some ugly hacks with merged cells. CSS have much more powerfull suport - using absolute positioning you can place anything anywhere you want, regardless of document order. However this comes at the cost of flexibility. Some new CSS proposals suggest a layout model where visual placment of elements in a grid can be totally independant of document order. However, since IE have taken more than a decade to implement the relatively simple table display model from CSS, this will propably not become a reality for the foreseable future.