...How do you get the text alongside the image to display halfway down, instead of being in the same line as the top of the image ?...

On explorer it seems to align at the center automatically. If you wish to force the alignment you can use <td valign="top"> or <td valign="center"> or <td valign="bottom">

...Are you using an editor of some sort?...
No I just use notepad but I do one line with as many columns as I need and cut and paste it like this then fill in the data.

<tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td></td></tr>