why does removing float collapse my background button image?

I've searched and seen people w开发者_高级运维rite about float:clear, but i think I'm having the opposite problem?

My button background image works with float, but when I remove float, I only see the button value text with 0 margin and the background image behind it-the button image is being cropped. I'm sure this is a very basic thing, but I can't understand what I'm doing wrong?

I can put a span around the button text and mess with margins to make something work, but I'm not sure if that is the right way to fix this?

I can include code if needed, but I'm hoping this is just an obvious thing to someone.

If the only thing you to do is remove float to cause the problem then my guess is you need to add display: block to your button's css.