troworld — Mon, 18 Nov 2002 00:10:14 +0000

By setting a background color for a DIV, the effect will be similar to that of setting the background color for a tablecell. Doing the same for SPAN will only set the bgcolor to the text, and not one pixel more/less.

dk01 — Sun, 17 Nov 2002 20:42:09 +0000

Try out:

for div:
http://www.zacker.com/10minguide/l06-1.html#Heading3

and

for span:
http://www.zacker.com/10minguide/l06-1.html#Heading4

Hope that helps. If you have more specific questions then feel free to ask.
-dk

Suzanne — Sun, 17 Nov 2002 20:41:46 +0000

No link, but this is pretty basic.

DIV is a block level element, as noted above. So is P, and TABLE. There are some special circumstances, but you can put P and TABLE into DIV, and DIV into TABLE, but not DIV into P (and P into TABLE, hygiene issues aside... ).

SPAN is an inline level element, like STRONG, A, EM, the deprecated B and I. It is meant to be used within P, TABLE, DIV but can NEVER EVER hold P, TABLE, or DIV.

Other than that, use them wherever, and however, you please.

Good convention indicates that DIV is used to contain discrete sections of the content (and can be nested, wheresas P cannot be). SPAN can also be nested, but if you find you're doing that a lot you may want to rethink your logic re: layout and markup.