Mixing percent and fixed CSS

This is a duplicate from UI.StackExchange.com:
https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/1004/mixing-percent-and-fixed-css

Should you ever apply percentage and fixed CSS together? Will it cause problems, and if so what kinds?

Does mixing degrade browser render performance?
Will mixing give you weird results on initial load with progressive rendering browsers?

Below is just a dumbed-down example of mixed usage, it could be any mixture. I am not looking for validation of the example. I have heard you should never do what I have in the example below, so I am trying to find out if using CSS in this manner is an issue.

Example mix usage:

<style>
.container
{
    width:300px;
}
.cell
{
    width:25%;
}
</style>

<table class="container">
     <tr>
        <td class="cell"><td>
        <td class="cell"><td>
        <td class="cell"><td>
        <td class="cell"><td>
     </tr>
</table>

Mixing percent and fixed CSS

5 Answers