CSS: I can't set width to “auto” always appear 100%

Question

for some reason

the width of the div is 100% and if i set it to auto, nothing changes. tried display: block; and still nothing.

what I have in

Answer 1

Setting width:auto; is close to the same as setting width:100%; (the only real difference is that they handle margin and padding differently).

Also, div objects are by default block elements, so setting display:block; won't change their behavior.

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You said you want the div to take up the width of the words. To do that you can either set display:table-cell (which is not very IE friendly) or you can float the div and it will snap to fit the contents inside.

.box { float:left; }

Make sure to properly clear your float after the div to avoid breaking the layout of contents below it.

.clear { clear:both; height:0px; }