Use CSS... and ditch tables! But for this purpose here's how to do it with CSS & a table...
Code:
HTML:
<table id="whatever">
<tr>
<td>Your text goes here</td>
</tr>
</table>
CSS:
#whatever {
width: 700px; /*apply your own sizes of course*/
height: 500px; /*apply your own sizes of course*/
background: #fff url("images/image.gif") repeat;
}
This presumes that you want your background image to repeat... you could also use:
no-repeat (self-explanatory)
repeat-x (repeat horizontally)
repeat-y (repeat vertically).