<span> Function: Delimit arbitrary amount of text Attributes: CLASS ONKEYUP DIR ONMOUSEDOWN ID ONMOUSEMOVE LANG ONMOUSEOUT ONCLICK ONMOUSEOVER ONDBLCLICK ONMOUSEUP ONKEYDOWN STYLE ONKEYPRESS TITLE End tag: </span>; never omitted Contains: html_content Used in: body_content

The <span> tag simply delimits a portion of content (constrained by normal tag nesting rules, of course). Browsers treat the <span> tag as another physical or content-based style tag. The only difference, of course, is that the default meaning of the <span> tag is to leave the text alone.

Although it may serve some other function in a future version of HTML, the <span> tag was introduced so that you can apply style, display, and event management to an arbitrary section of document content. Display and event management are addressed later; to define a style for the <span> tag, treat it like any other HTML tag:

span {color: purple}
span.bigger {font-size: larger}

and use it like any other style tag:

Quat harvest projections are <span class=bigger>bigger than ever</span>!

In a similar manner, the appearance of a <span> tag can be changed using an inline style:

Quat harvest projections are <span style="font-size: larger">bigger than ever</span>!

Like any other physical or content-based style tag, <span> tags can be nested and may contain other tags.