A span is normally a inline element so setting a width to it might not have the effects you are looking for.
In order to “force” a span to have a width it can be set as a inline-block

<span style="display:inline-block;width:92px;">&nbsp;</span>

another (better!) way is to use padding to give the span a size.

<span style="padding: 10px 20px; font-size: 0px;">&nbsp;</span>

(The font-size is here to “fix” the height of the span; and don’t forget that padding happens on both sides in this example so the end result is 20x40px)