help me make 3 columns with CSS

ok i’m a CSS NEWB. i have a site already done, but it only uses CSS for some fonts. it uses tables for the layout and one table consists of 3 columns and is HUGE, so sometimes the page loads slow. i want to break up the big table and use CSS to make the 3 columns instead.

as it is now without CSS, i have one big table centered, so the 3 columns are all always centered side-by-side. i’m having trouble replicating this with CSS.

below is someone else’s code that i’m tinkering with. column1 is on the left, column2 is in the middle, and column 3 is on the right. as of now, column2 is centered, but i can’t get column1 and column3 to stick to the sides of column2. also, i would like all 3 aligned equally at the top.

could someone please modify this code to show me how this would be done?

thanks

<style type=”text/css”>
body {
text-align:center;
width: 728px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;

/* Sets Width to Maximum allowed */

div#main {
width: 728px;

}

div#column3 {

position: absolute;
width: 120px;
right: 10px;

}

div#column1 {
position: absolute;
left: 0px;
top: 100px;
width: 120px;

}

div#column2 {
width: 468px;
mmargin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;

}

</style>

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