how to evenly distribute elements in a div next to each other?

Question

This is meant for a menu.
For example I have a div element with 3 spans in it, all of which have some margin, max-width and float (left or right).
It is positioned s

Answer 1

Make all spans used inline-block elements. Create an empty stretch span with a 100% width beneath the list of spans containing the menu items. Next make the div containing the spans text-align: justified. This would then force the inline-block elements [your menu items] to evenly distribute.

https://jsfiddle.net/freedawirl/bh0eadzz/3/

  <div id="container">

          <div class="social">
            <a href="#" target="_blank" aria-label="facebook-link">
            <img src="http://placehold.it/40x40">
            </a>
            <a href="#" target="_blank" aria-label="twitter-link">
                <img src="http://placehold.it/40x40">
            </a>
            <a href="#" target="_blank" aria-label="youtube-link">
                <img src="http://placehold.it/40x40">
            </a>
            <a href="#" target="_blank" aria-label="pinterest-link">
                 <img src="http://placehold.it/40x40">
            </a>
            <a href="#" target="_blank" aria-label="snapchat-link">
                <img src="http://placehold.it/40x40">
            </a>
            <a href="#" target="_blank" aria-label="blog-link">
                 <img src="http://placehold.it/40x40">
            </a>

            <a href="#" aria-label="phone-link">
                 <img src="http://placehold.it/40x40">
            </a>
            <span class="stretch"></span>
          </div>
             </div>

Answer 2

justify-content: space-betweenanddisplay: flex is all we needed, but thanks to @Pratul for the inspiration!

Answer 3

You can use justify.

This is similar to the other answers, except that the left and rightmost elements will be at the edges instead of being equally spaced - [a...b...c instead of .a..b..c.]

<div class="menu">
    <span>1</span>
    <span>2</span>
    <span>3</span>
</div>

<style>
.menu {text-align:justify;}
.menu:after { content:' '; display:inline-block; width: 100%; height: 0 }
.menu > span {display:inline-block} 
</style>

One gotcha is that you must leave spaces in between each element. [See the fiddle.]

There are two reasons to set the menu items to inline-block:

1. If the element is by default a block level item (such as an <li>) the display must be set to inline or inline-block to stay in the same line.
2. If the element has more than one word (<span>click here</span>), each word will be distributed evenly when set to inline, but only the elements will be distributed when set to inline-block.

See the JSFiddle

EDIT:
Now that flexbox has wide support (all non-IE, and IE 10+), there is a "better way".
Assuming the same element structure as above, all you need is:

<style>
    .menu { display: flex; justify-content: space-between; }
</style>

If you want the outer elements to be spaced as well, just switch space-between to space-around.
See the JSFiddle