Microdata Without Span Tag

I have a site where the designer applied CSS to the base tag which makes the tag effectively useless for microdata markup unless I want all my text to be blue, bold, a

Solution 1:

You can use every HTML5 element for Microdata. But note that some elements have special rules for determining the value, and some elements come with additional requirements if used with Microdata.

If your question is if there is another inline HTML5 element that has no meaning (= span): no, there isn’t.

If your question is how to use span without the applied CSS: add a class to "your" span elements and overwrite any applied CSS with CSS’s class selector:

<span class="never-style-span-directly" itemprop="example">…</span>

CSS:

span {color:blue;}
.never-style-span-directly {color:inherit;}

Solution 2:

Why not do a site-wide find and replace for existing tags and update replace with something like <span class="blueLargerTextWhyOhWhy"> (class name optional) and update the stylesheet to target that class rather than all spans.

Once done and tested you will be free to use generic tags as needed.

Also educate that designer if you can :)