Tagless Styles: The <span> Tag
Up to now, we have used cascading stylesheets to change the
appearance of content within a designated tag. In some cases, however,
you may want to alter the appearance of only a portion of a tag's
contents—usually text. Designate these special segments with the
<span> tag.
The <span> tag simply delimits a portion of content (constrained by
normal tag-nesting rules, of course). Browsers treat the <span> tag as another physical or
content-based style tag—the only difference is that the default meaning
of the <span> tag is to leave
the text alone.
The <span> tag became
part of HTML so that you could apply style, display, and event
management to an arbitrary section of document content. Define a style
for the <span> tag as you would
any other HTML or XHTML tag:
span {color: purple}
span.bigger {font-size: larger}
and use it like any other HTML or XHTML tag:
Quat harvest projections are <span class=bigger>bigger than ever</span>!
Similarly, apply an inline style to the <span> tag to modify the appearance of
its contents:
Quat harvest projections are <span style="font-size: larger">bigger than ever</span>!
Like any other physical or content-based style tag, <span> tags ...