# CSS Display and Visibility

The display property specifies if/how an element is displayed, and the visibility property specifies if an element should be visible or hidden.

Box 1
Box 2
Box 3

## Hiding an Element - display:none or visibility:hidden

Hiding an element can be done by setting the display property to "none" or the visibility property to "hidden". However, notice that these two methods produce different results:

visibility:hidden hides an element, but it will still take up the same space as before. The element will be hidden, but still affect the layout:

## Example

h1.hidden {
visibility: hidden;
}
Try it yourself »

display:none hides an element, and it will not take up any space. The element will be hidden, and the page will be displayed as if the element is not there:

## Example

h1.hidden {
display: none;
}
Try it yourself »

## CSS Display - Block and Inline Elements

A block element is an element that takes up the full width available, and has a line break before and after it.

Examples of block elements:

- <h1>
- <p>
- <li>
- <div>

An inline element only takes up as much width as necessary, and does not force line breaks.

Examples of inline elements:

- <span>
- <a>

## Changing How an Element is Displayed

Changing an inline element to a block element, or vice versa, can be useful for making the page look a specific way, and still follow web standards.

The following example displays <li> elements as inline elements:

## Example

li {
display: inline;
}
Try it yourself »

The following example displays <span> elements as block elements:

## Example

span {
display: block;
}
Try it yourself »

| Note: Setting the display property of an element only changes how the element is displayed, NOT what kind of element it is. So, an inline element with display:block is not allowed to have other block elements inside of it.

## More Examples

How to display an element as an inline element.
This example demonstrates how to display an element as an inline element.

How to make a table element collapse
This example demonstrates how to make a <table> element collapse.

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