Feedback wanted - how do you set column widths in your HTML tables?

My PM asked this question once in the forums but we did not get many replies - lets see how many we get in the blogs.

How do you set the width of your table columns in HTML tables? Do you:

  1. Set a width on one of the cells in the column and clear the width from all other cells.
  2. Set a width in all of the cells in the column.
  3. Use the <COL> tag.

To put it another way, what would you expect the designer to do if you grabbed the edge of a cell and started dragging? Would you expect:

  1. The cell you grabbed to have the new width written to it.
  2. The cell you grabbed to have the new width written to it, and all other cells in the column to have widths cleared.
  3. All cells in the same column as the cell you grabbed to have the new width written to them.
  4. A <COL> tag is generated for you if it is not there already, all cells in the column have widths cleared, and the <COL> has the new width written to it.
  5. Something else.

Feel free to express multiple preferences rather than pick one.

For example, my preference is to set the width on all cells (Option 2 in the first list), and I expect the editor to keep that or change tables to look like that when I edit them (Option 3 in the second list). Why do I set on all cells? Because I like the redundancy I suppose. But I know other people have other priorities, which is why I ask this question here.