2 divs have about 1px gap in IE 11

Question

IE 10 and 11 hasn't disappointed me so much when it comes to css until today . .

The class base and triangle has about 1px gap in between in IE 9 - 11. The other 4 browsers are not showing the gap.

.base {
    display: inline-block;
    position: absolute;
    bottom: 5px;
    right: -8px;
    background-color: #ffcc00;
    color: #5A5A5A;
    font-size: 12px;
    font-weight: bold;
    padding: 2px 5px;
    text-decoration: none;
    margin:0;
}
.triangle {
    width: 0px;
    height: 0px;
    border-style: solid;
    border-width: 10px 0 0 11px;
    border-color: transparent transparent transparent #DBB004;
    display: inline-block;
    position: absolute;
    bottom: 24px;
    right: -8px;
    margin:0;
    z-index: -1;
}

Here's a FIDDLE

Answer 1

This is not a bug. This is the correct rendering of display: inline-block; elements by the browser. The browser spaces inline-block elements using a width equal to a single white space character of the font (therefore, the larger the font, the wider the gap).

You can read how to solve this issue at CSS Tricks here. However, generally a negative margin-left of -4px (if your body font size is 16px) will remove the white space. For example:

.element {
    display: inline-block;
}

.element ~ .element {
    margin-left: -4px;
}

Edit

A better way of handling the white-space is to set font-size: 0; on the parent element and reset the font-size: 18px; or whatever your body font-size is on each of the elements with display: inline-block; elements`. This will handle browser zooming and hires displays better than the method I described above. Obviously, this strategy sometimes require an additional parent element, which might break your layout styling.