HTML <span> Tag

The HTML <span> tag represents its children for the purposes of applying global attributes.

The <span> is commonly used for applying styles, but can also be useful for specifying a language, or specifying text direction, etc.

Syntax

The <span> tag is written as <span></span> with any children nested between the start and end tags.

The <span> tag will normally have an attribute, because the <span> element doesn't actually mean anything on its own. Probably the most common attribute to use with the <span> tag is the class attribute, which allows you to associate the element with styles from a style sheet.

Like this:

Example

The style Attribute

Here, we use the <span> tag and the style attribute to apply inline styles to some content.

The class Attribute

Here, we use the <span> tag and the class attribute to apply styles from an embedded style sheet to various words within a <blockquote> element.

Attributes

Attributes can be added to an HTML element to provide more information about how the element should appear or behave.

The <span> element accepts the following attributes.

AttributeDescription
None 

Global Attributes

The following attributes are standard across all HTML elements. Therefore, you can use these attributes with the <span> tag , as well as with all other HTML tags.

For a full explanation of these attributes, see HTML 5 global attributes.

Event Handlers

Event handler content attributes enable you to invoke a script from within your HTML. The script is invoked when a certain "event" occurs. Each event handler content attribute deals with a different event.

Most event handler content attributes can be used on all HTML elements, but some event handlers have specific rules around when they can be used and which elements they are applicable to.

For more detail, see HTML event handler content attributes.