Why are inline-block elements not displayed correctly in Internet Explorer 8?

The old versions of IE don't understand the inline-block for block-level elements.

The reason why inline-block works for inline elements is because they did it so it triggers hasLayout. And the has layout for inline elements works exactly like an inline-block.

So, to make inline-block work with block-level elements, make them inline and somehow trigger the hasLayout, like, using zoom: 1.

So, for you code, there are two ways: change divs to spans, or add inline hacks (or move the code to external stylesheets and use conditional comments). The version with inline hacks would look like this:

<div style='width: 200px; border: 1px solid black;'>
  <div style='display: inline-block; width: 70px; border: 1px solid green;*display:inline;zoom:1;'>
    asdfasdf<br />asdf
  </div>
  <div style='display: inline-block; width: 70px; border: 1px solid green;*display:inline;zoom:1;'>
    asdfasdf<br />were
  </div>
</div>

display: inline-block; *zoom: 1; *display: inline;

you can add inline-block for other browser but for IE you can add style with *. it only works in ie