CODEWITHSUNDEEP
htmlcsstext-align
Hemanshu Bhojak
Hemanshu Bhojak

Reputation: 17288

Align contents inside a div

I use css style text-align to align contents inside a container in HTML. This works fine while the content is text or the browser is IE. But otherwise it does not work.

Also as the name suggests it is used basically to align text. The align property has been deprecated long back.

Is there any other way to align contents in html?

Upvotes: 171

Views: 594616

Answers (8)

nmak18
nmak18

Reputation: 1169

Below are the methods which have always worked for me

  1. By using flex layout model:

Set the display of the parent div to display: flex; and the you can align the child elements inside the div using the justify-content: center; (to align the items on main axis) and align-items: center; (to align the items on cross axis).

If you have more than one child element and want to control the way they are arranged (column/rows), then you can also add flex-direction property.

Working example:

.parent {
  align-items: center;
  border: 1px solid black;
  display: flex;
  justify-content: center;
  height: 250px;
  width: 250px;
}

.child {
  border: 1px solid black;
  height: 50px;
  width: 50px;
}
<div class="parent">
  <div class="child"></div>
</div>

2. (older method) Using position, margin properties and fixed size

Working example:

.parent {
  border: 1px solid black;
  height: 250px;
  position: relative;
  width: 250px;
}

.child {
  border: 1px solid black;
  margin: auto;
  top: 0;
  bottom: 0;
  left: 0;
  right: 0;
  height: 50px;
  position: absolute;
  width: 50px;
}
<div class="parent">
  <div class="child"></div>
</div>

Upvotes: 19

Nicolas
Nicolas

Reputation: 828

All the answers talk about horizontal align.

For vertical aligning multiple content elements, take a look at this approach:

<div style="display: flex; align-items: center; width: 200px; height: 140px; padding: 10px 40px; border: solid 1px black;">
    <div>
        <p>Paragraph #1</p>
        <p>Paragraph #2</p>
    </div>
</div>

Upvotes: 2

Diogo
Diogo

Reputation: 318

Just another example using HTML and CSS:

<div style="width: Auto; margin: 0 auto;">Hello</div>

Upvotes: -1

krithi k
krithi k

Reputation: 191

<div class="content">Hello</div>

.content {
    margin-top:auto;
    margin-bottom:auto;
    text-align:center;
}

Upvotes: 17

Mahdi
Mahdi

Reputation: 9427

You can do it like this also:

HTML

<body>
    <div id="wrapper_1">
        <div id="container_1"></div>
    </div>
</body>

CSS

body { width: 100%; margin: 0; padding: 0; overflow: hidden; }

#wrapper_1 { clear: left; float: left; position: relative; left: 50%; }

#container_1 { display: block; float: left; position: relative; right: 50%; }

As Artem Russakovskii mentioned also, read the original article by Mattew James Taylor for full description.

Upvotes: 9

Mike Becatti
Mike Becatti

Reputation: 2102

Here is a technique I use that has worked well:

<div>
    <div style="display: table-cell; width: 100%">&nbsp;</div>
    <div style="display: table-cell; white-space: nowrap;">Something Here</div>
</div>

Upvotes: 3

Alexandru
Alexandru

Reputation: 12932

Honestly, I hate all the solutions I've seen so far, and I'll tell you why: They just don't seem to ever align it right...so here's what I usually do:

I know what pixel values each div and their respective margins hold...so I do the following.

I'll create a wrapper div that has an absolute position and a left value of 50%...so this div now starts in the middle of the screen, and then I subtract half of all the content of the div's width...and I get BEAUTIFULLY scaling content...and I think this works across all browsers, too. Try it for yourself (this example assumes all content on your site is wrapped in a div tag that uses this wrapper class and all content in it is 200px in width):

.wrapper {
    position: absolute;
    left: 50%;
    margin-left: -100px;
}

EDIT: I forgot to add...you may also want to set width: 0px; on this wrapper div for some browsers to not show the scrollbars, and then you may use absolute positioning for all inner divs.

This also works AMAZING for vertically aligning your content as well using top: 50% and margin-top. Cheers!

Upvotes: 7

bobince
bobince

Reputation: 536795

text-align aligns text and other inline content. It doesn't align block element children.

To do that, you want to give the element you want aligned a width, with ‘auto’ left and right margins. This is the standards-compliant way that works everywhere except IE5.x.

<div style="width: 50%; margin: 0 auto;">Hello</div>

For this to work in IE6, you need to make sure Standards Mode is on by using a suitable DOCTYPE.

If you really need to support IE5/Quirks Mode, which these days you shouldn't really, it is possible to combine the two different approaches to centering:

<div style="text-align: center">
    <div style="width: 50%; margin: 0 auto; text-align: left">Hello</div>
</div>

(Obviously, styles are best put inside a stylesheet, but the inline version is illustrative.)

Upvotes: 238

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