Can CSS Effectively Style Line Breaks () Tags?

Targeting Line-breaks Using CSS

Despite the inherent limitations of line-break (
) tags, it is technically possible to apply CSS styles to them. However, due to their lack of content, only a limited number of properties, such as clear and position, are applicable.

Targeting
directly or through a class is possible, but it is important to note that this element merely creates a line-break and has no visual representation. Border styles, for example, are not visible since there is no dimension to display.

To separate sentences visually, the horizontal ruler (

---

) element should be employed instead, as it is specifically designed for this purpose. Modifying the HTML structure is not viable in your case, making it impractical to achieve your desired effect solely through CSS.

Historical discussions on forums have addressed the complexities of applying CSS to
tags. Additionally, the CSS 1 specification explicitly states that its properties cannot adequately describe
behavior. Despite attempts to allow styling in later versions, it remains a challenge to fully manipulate this element.

Tests by Grant Wagner have confirmed that styling
is not as flexible as with other elements. However, investigations by pelms and c69 reveal that some limited styling is possible in IE8 (Win7), Chrome 2, and Safari 4b. Notably, these styles affect the marker for
rather than the line-break itself.

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