CSS 2.1 Complete Reference

Property Name: display

This property is centric to the rendering process of a document. In a language such as HTML where elements have inherent behaviour, the default property values are taken from the behaviours described in the HTML specifications. In languages where display behaviour is not defined (such as in XML), the default value is inline. There are many possible values, however 3 values in particular will make up most of your usage of this property. The first, is the inline value. Inline elements do not create separate blocks of content. They keep up with the normal flow of content, can be placed within a line of text, and react 'normally' when the document is resized. A class that defines underlined, italic, bold, colored text, with a certain border and a specific font, may still remain an inline element. The second value is the block value. Several HTML elements are inherently block elements, such as DIVs and Headings. These elements create distinct, separate 'blocks' of content, usually generating a line-break before and after the content. Only Block Elements can be positioned. The third and last important display value is none. When an element's display property is set to none, it, as well as all of its child elements, are turned off. They are simply removed from the document tree, when the document is rendered (although they still exist, they are not rendered visually). This allows for some very powerful features, but should be thoroughly examined and tested before deployed for general use.