HTML - Block and Inline Elements

Every HTML element has it's own display value depending on the type of elemment. Block elements used to creat logical and semantic layout of a web page. They help to organize the content into meaningful sections and make it easier for browsers, search engines, and site visitors to understand the structure and meaning of different parts of the web page. Inline elements are used to make useful block element, like adding anchor links.

In HTML, the blocks are enclosed by various elements, such as <div>, <p>, <table> and so on. All the HTML elements can be categorized into two categories.

Block Elements
Inline Elements

Block Elements

Block level elements appear on the screen as if they have a line break before and after them. A few block elements are listed below.

List of HTML Block Elements

Below mentioned all the elements are block level elements, they all start with a new line on their own, and anything that follows them appears on the next line.

HTML Block Elements
<address>	<article>	<aside>	<blockquote>	<canvas>
<dd>	<div>	<dl>	<dt>	<fieldset>
<figcaption>	<figure>	<footer>	<form>	<h1> - <h6>
<header>	<hr>	<li>	<main>	<nav>
<noscript>	<ol>	<p>	<pre>	<section>
<table>	<tfoot>	<ul>	<video>

Example of block level Elements

In this example, we are going to use some of the block level elements. On executing the below HTML code, it will produce one heading and two paragraphs separated by a horizontal line

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

<head>
    <title>HTML Block Level Elements</title>
</head>

<body>
   <h3>HTML Block Level Elements</h3>
   <p>
      This line will appear in the next line
      after Heading.
   </p>
   <hr>
   <p>
      This line will appear after Horizontal
      Line.
   </p>
</body>

</html>

Inline Elements

Inline elements, on the other hand, can appear within the same line and do not start a new line on their own. Some common inline elements are as follows:

List of HTML Inline Elements

Below mentioned all the elements are inlnine elements, they did not start with a new line on their own.

HTML Inline Elements
<a>	<abbr>	<acronym>	<b>	<bdo>
<big>	<br>	<button>	<cite>	<code>
<dfn>	<em>	<i>	<img>	<input>
<kbd>	<label>	<map>	<object>	<output>
<q>	<samp>	<script>	<select>	<small>
<span>	<strong>	<sub >	<sup>	<textarea>
<time>	<tt>	<var>

Example of Inline Elements

In the following example, we are going to illustrates the use of a few inline elements. The below code will generate a bold line and an italic line.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

<head>
    <title>HTML inline Element</title>
</head>

<body>
    <h3>Inline Elements in HTML</h3>
    <!-- Using <b> inline element -->
    <p>This <b>paragraph</b> is bold. </p>
    <!-- Using <i> inline element  -->
    <p>This is an <i>italic</i> paragraph.</p>
</body>

</html>

Grouping HTML Block and Inline Elements

There are two ways to group these elements;

Using <div> Tag
Using <span> Tag

Grouping using <div> Tag

The <div> tag is a block level element which plays a big role in grouping various other HTML tags and applying CSS on group of elements. Even now <div> tag can be used to create webpage layout where we define different parts (Left, Right, Top etc.) of the web page. This tag does not provide any visual change on the block but this has more meaning when it is used with CSS.

Example

Following is a simple example of <div> tag. We will learn Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) in a separate chapter but we used it here to show the usage of <div> tag −

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
   <title>HTML div Tag</title>
</head>
<body>
   <!-- First group of tags -->
   <div style="color:red">
      <h4>This is first group</h4>
      <p>Following is a list of vegetables</p>
      <ul>
         <li>Beetroot</li>
         <li>Ginger</li>
         <li>Potato</li>
         <li>Radish</li>
      </ul>
   </div>
   <!-- Second group of tags -->
   <div style="color:green">
      <h4>This is second group</h4>
      <p>Following is a list of fruits</p>
      <ul>
         <li>Apple</li>
         <li>Banana</li>
         <li>Mango</li>
         <li>Strawberry</li>
      </ul>
   </div>
</body>
</html>

Grouping using using <span> Tag

The HTML <span> is an inline element and it can be used to group inline-elements in an HTML document. This tag also does not provide any visual change on the block but has more meaning when it is used with CSS.

The difference between the <span> tag and the <div> tag is that the <span> tag is used with inline elements whereas the <div> tag is used with block-level elements.

Example

Following is a simple example of <span> tag. We will learn Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) in a separate chapter but we used it here to show the usage of <span> tag.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
   <title>HTML span Tag</title>
</head>
<body>
   <p>
      This is <span style="color:red">red</span> 
      and this is <span style="color:green">green</span>
   </p>
</body>
</html>

Print Page