Can you explain the space above and below inline content?
This phenomenon can be seen here:
http://jsbin.com/vertical-spacing-weirdness/
If you look closely, there is a white area between the div/table and the span even though the span does not have any padding or margin applied.
An interesting observation is that this space disappears when using a transitional doctype:
http://jsbin.com/vertical-spacing-weirdness/2/
It's worth noting that in Firefox, the space appears in Transitional mode when using a pixel font-size value that is divisible by 4 (4px,16px,20px, etc.).
Edit- Resolved Issue / Explanation
After further investigation, it seems that the issue arises from having different font sizes for the parent (div or table) and the child (span). With strict doctype styling, the div height adjusts to accommodate text within the div but not in the span. Therefore, in both examples below, the div will have the same height:
<div>text<span>...</span></div>
<div><span>...</span></div>
On the other hand, with transitional styling, the div will only be as tall as necessary. In the second example, it will match the font size of the span since there are no characters matching the font size of the div.
The anomaly in Firefox regarding font sizes multiples of 4 remains puzzling.
(Tested on 23.0.1
& nightly: 26.0a1 (2013-08-31)
)
If my explanation was unclear, feel free to ask for clarification.