Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

The Building Blocks of Content

Text elements fall into two broad categories: inline and block. Inline elements occur in the flow of text and do not cause line breaks by default (they are covered later in this chapter). Block-level elements, on the other hand, have a default presentation that starts a new line and tends to stack up like blocks in the normal flow of the document. Block elements make up the main components of document structure.

Compared to inline elements, there are relatively few block elements. This section looks at heading levels, paragraphs, blockquotes, preformatted text, and addresses. Lists and list items are also block elements, and they are discussed later in this chapter, as is the generic div element used for defining custom block elements. The other block-level elements are tables and forms, which are treated in their own respective chapters.