when ever I use padding the div increase's in size. Why is that? and how do I stop it from increasing the div size.

Don't use padding. IE and FF apply padding/margins differently. Well, they calculate them differently when adding up all the widths.

I only use padding for top and bottom and I use margin to control the sides. The other thing that I will do is set the width of say <P> to 98% and then use "margin: 0 auto" to center it so that I get a padding on the left and right of 1% each.

Firefox applies margins and padding per the W3C specs, IE does things it's own way, and you have to take that into account.

IE's busted box model problem:
http://www.communitymx.com/content/a...989953B6F20B41