Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Inline Elements

Most text elements are inline elements (spans of characters within the flow of text). Inline elements by default do not add line breaks or extra space.

This section introduces the semantic text elements that describe the enclosed text’s meaning, context, or usage. These elements leave the specific rendering of the element to style sheets, either the author’s or the browser’s default rendering. There are other inline elements in the XHTML specification that are concerned with presentation (for example, the b element for bold text). They are briefly discussed at the end this chapter.