When you write a plain HTML list like this:
<ul>
<li>item 1</li>
<li>item 2</li>
<li>item 3</li>
</ul>
Web browsers display the list with some indenting on the left side. As you can see from the image on this page, the unordered list is indented slightly from the left margin of the div it is in (the black border).
In order to do this, the browser makers had three ways they could implement it:
- Give each LI element a left margin.
- Give each UL or OL element a left margin.
- Give each UL or OL element a left padding.
So far, no browsers have used the first option. Internet Explorer and Opera add left margins and Firefox and Safari add left paddings.
