SO - 21896591

by Arun P Johny

HTML

<div class="numbers">12345</div>
<div class="numbers">12345</div>
<div class="numbers">12345</div>

CSS

.numbers span {
    display: inline-block;
    margin: 2px;
    background-color: lightgrey;
}

JavaScript

$('.numbers').html(function (i, html) {
    var chars = $.trim(html).split("");
    return '<span>' + chars.join('</span><span>') + '</span>';
});