views:

48

answers:

7

Is it correct HTML to change the color of text inside a H1, H2, H3 or H4 element? Are they block level?

For example

<h1><span style="color:#ABAB">#500</span> Hello world</h1>
+9  A: 

They are block elements.

If you look at the HTML 4.01 strict DTD:

<!ENTITY % heading "H1|H2|H3|H4|H5|H6">

<!ENTITY % block
     "P | %heading; | %list; | %preformatted; | DL | DIV | NOSCRIPT |
      BLOCKQUOTE | FORM | HR | TABLE | FIELDSET | ADDRESS">

So, they are all defined as %heading entities, which in turn are part of the %block entities.

As for the question regarding if you can change the color - that's just styling and is fine, though I would do so in a CSS file, not inline:

H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6
{
 color: #ccccc;
}
Oded
@oded i liked the way you have added html DTD to explain the answer.GR8
sushil bharwani
I was just trying to keep the example simple so used inline CSS. I did try some googling first but I couldn't find my answer from skimming http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/global.html#h-7.5.5
Chris S
@Chris S - no problem. I can only go on what is in the question though ;)
Oded
Great answer btw and it's interesting they've got tokens for categories of other elements inside the block definition
Chris S
A: 

yes headers are block level.

on another note, #ABAB is not a valid color :)

red-X
A: 

They are all block elements

sushil bharwani
A: 

The best pracktace is first create CSS style in stylesheet.

h1 { 
font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; 
font-size: 18px; 
font-weight: bold; 
color: #000000; 
} 
SaifalMaluk
+1  A: 

Yes This is the correct way, If you want to use inline css. Otherwise make a class say

<h1 class="title"><span>#500</span> Hello world</h1>

Now Its Css is:

h1.title span{
color:#ABABAB;
}

Again yes h1 to h6 is a block level.

saorabh
A: 

Color alters font color, not background color, so technically it's equally correct. However, doing it that way means that for every header you want with this style you must specify a span tag inside like you've done.

Better solution if you want to always have it in effect for h1 tags might be to include a stylesheet with the following code:

h1 {
  color: #ABABAB
}
Neil
+1  A: 

Yes, a span within a h1 tag is allowed. As you can see on the W3C Reference page for the h1 tag:

Permitted contents: phrasing content

And phrasing content is normal text as well as your span element (and several other elements as can be seen on this reference page for phrasing content.

Oh yeah, and the heading tags are block elements.

moontear