Error: \caption outside float

Question

When I add the following table (table1 shown below) I don't get any error, but when adding table2 (shown below) I get the error i)\caption outside float. \caption ii) Undefined control sequence \caption. What is the difference between these two table definitions? These two seems same to me.

latex code for table1 :

\begin{table}[h]
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{| p{2.5cm}| p{2.5cm} | p{2.5cm} |}
\hline
\textbf{AAA} & \textbf{BBB} & \textbf{CCC} \\
\hline
DDD   & 111 & 333\\ \hline
EEE   & 222 & 444\\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{center}

\caption{Caption1}
\label{table1}

\end{table}

................................................................

latex code for table2:

begin{table}[h]
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{| p{2.5cm}| p{2.5cm} |}
\hline
\textbf{GGG} & \textbf{HHH} \\
\hline
III                    &              113\\ \hline
JJJ                    &              234\\ \hline
KKK                    &              345\\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\caption{Caption2}
\label{table2}
\end{table}

Answer 1

Check carefully your document when such errors pop out; before the editing to the question, the second begin{table} wasn't preceded by the backslash. In this case LaTeX is happy to print "begintable[h]" and then start the center environment.

If you had proceded on by hitting return at the error message you'd have seen another one telling you that the document environment had been closed by table.

By the way, don't use the center environment in this situation:

\begin{table}
\centering
<table data>
\caption{The caption}\label{thelabel}
\end{table}

Answer 2

The second table started with

begin{table}[h]

instead of

\begin{table}[h]

meaning it missed a \ and that was what gave the error of a caption outside a float.