title: Best replacement for font tag in html
body: <p>Since the <code>font</code> tag in HTML is being deprecated in HTML5 (and I understand why) is there a clean solution for applying certain attributes and styles to only <em>portions</em> of a paragraph text? I'm using JavaScript to parse an XML file that relies on the fact that the <code>font</code> tag allows portions of wrapping text to be formatted using class-based CSS. I realize the "anchor" (<code>a</code>) tag could also be used for this purpose, but that way seems very backwards and unnatural.</p>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT</strong></p>
  
  <p>When I asked this question (a couple years ago now) I was failing to understand that every DOM element falls into a <a href="http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/pr_class_display.asp" rel="noreferrer" title="full list of display types"><code>display</code></a> category, the two primary categories being:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><code>block</code> - insists on taking up its own row</li>
  <li><code>inline</code> - falls in line with other <code>inline</code> elements or text</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>HTML offers two generic container elements, each of which by default adheres to one of these display values; <code>div</code> for <code>block</code> display, and <code>span</code> for <code>inline</code> display.</p>
  
  <p>The <code>span</code> element is the perfect way to designate a certain chunk of text and give it a unique style or ID because you can wrap it around part of a larger paragraph without breaking the selected contents into a new row.</p>