Posted by Jonathan N. Little on 07/12/06 11:41

Joel Shepherd wrote:
> "Jonathan N. Little" <lws4art@centralva.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> Says who? Not if you style them to have margins. Margins are for block
>> elements anyway, DIV is a block element, SPAN is not.
>
> Hmm. This seems to eventually getting around to saying that margins are
> meaningful for "inline boxes" (of which SPAN is an example), but the
> behavior for an inline box contained in a single "line box" differs from
> that of one split across two or more line boxes.
>
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/visuren.html#inline-formatting>
>
> That would seem to explain what the OP is observing.
>
> (Oh dear. I seemed to have forgotten that a proper response should
> include "If you can't Google it, I can't teach it", or warn all
> concerned from "putting digits to keyboard again", or snarl "put a sock
> in it" ... but, it is apparently possible to have a civilized discussion
> even about something as thoroughly addressed by the specs as this
> subject seems to be.) Boy, did I say that out loud? Please excuse me.
>
Yes, but the OP stated

"I have a <span> block with text that wraps for several lines. I want it
with a margin of 20px so I did a...
<span style="margin-left:20px">.......</span>
But only the first line showed the margin. How can I have it so all
the lines resulting from the <span> are shifted 20px to the right? (or
should I use tables for this?)"

That is behavior of a *block* element, not an *inline* or
*inline-block*. Because inline elements flow within their containing
blocks they have no explicit width of their own. So left and right
margins are only applied to the beginning and ending of their content
even if the containing block forces the inline to wrap. That is not what
the OP wants, he wanted the 20px left margin to be applied on the left
side of the wrap lines, i.e., a block with width. That is block
behavior, not inline.

I misspoke, on margins I meant in context with explicit widths....

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

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