The DIV element is an all-purpose, generalized HTML Block
Structure. Use this element when you wish to define a block or section of
Styled text, and SPAN when you wish to create a
generalized in-line Character Formatting element.
Note that the DIV element was not listed in the Block
Formatting section, even though it is a Block Level element. DIV is a
generic element and does not attach any semantic meaning. It is of greatest use
when working with Style Sheets, so it is grouped with other elements of this category.
DIV CLASSes can be nested. This allows for more powerful Style Sheet mechanisms.
An author can abuse this capability by using negative margin values to create
content that overlaps other content. This effect can be achieved more reliably
using properties specified in the CSS
positioning draft. The design possibilities using overlapping content
are enormous - but understanding the issues of such constructs is also essential.
Use of the CENTER element to center align text
in a block is still recommended slightly over use of DIV because more older
browsers support it. This difference in support is quickly changing though.
Along the same lines, HTML 3.2
classifies
of
This effectively makes the CENTER tag a "subset" of DIV.
DTD NOTE: Alignment attributes do not react very well
with the MULTICOL element.