Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Name

span

Synopsis

    <span>...</span>

Attributes

Core (id, class, style, title), Internationalization, Events

This is a simple example of a span used to identify a telephone number.

    Jenny:<span class="telephone">867.5309</span>

Markup like this has a number of uses. Most commonly, it is a “hook” that can be used to apply style sheet rules. In this example, all elements labeled as telephone may receive the same presentational instructions, such as to be displayed in bold, blue text.

The span also gives meaning to an otherwise random string of digits to user agents who know what to do with telephone information. This is discussed a bit more in the next section.