CSS is much better to use. You could however have inline styles using Javascript (eg. element.style.width = "100px"). Inline styles have preference over CSS unless you use "!important" with the style. The html tags are usually for quick editing or if you don't want to add cluttered up classes, attributes to files such as <b>, <i> though it is preferable to use <span class='bold'> than <span style='font-weight:bold'> and <b>. The major advantage to use CSS instead of inline html styles is that you can change change all the element's styles that associate with that CSS rule, but inline styling is much easier to handle with Javascript.