Jayesh Tembhekar ⚡

Posted on Mar 8, 2020 • Edited on Mar 19, 2020

How to center things in CSS 💘

#css #html #beginners

Yo devs ! 🔥

A quick guide on "How to center things in CSS" 🙌

Most of the time, you write great CSS code from colors to complex animations.
But I know most of us (beginners) still struggle to center elements on a viewport perfectly.

Don't worry devs, you are no longer be an noob at the end of this short guide.

Let's get started

There are two ways to center any HTML element on a web page :

1. Using Flexbox

2. Using Transform

Using Flexbox

HTML code as shown below 👇

  <body>
    <div class="container">
      <div id="object"></div>
    </div>
  </body>

Now the CSS code


html,
body,
.container {
  height: 100%;
  overflow: hidden;
}

.container {
  display: flex;
  justify-content: center;
}

#object {
  height: 100px;
  width: 100px;
  background: red;
  align-self: center;
}

Using Transform

HTML code shown below 👇


<body>
    <div class="element"></div>
</body>

Now the CSS code


.element
    {
        width: 100px;
        height: 100px;
        background: coral;           
    }

.element
    { 
        position: absolute;
        top: 50%;
        left: 50%;
        transform: translate(-50% , -50%);
    }

Check out my other posts too 🥂

Author: Jayesh 🧡

Top comments (11)

danielpdev • Mar 8 '20 • Edited

You could also use the old style:

#content { margin: 0 auto; }
but this works only on block elements, so just add display: block; for inline elements.

Thanks for sharing!

Alvaro Montoro • Mar 9 '20

That would only center horizontally though.

danielpdev • Mar 9 '20

Yes, that's right.
Although, to align both horizontally and vertically you can also use margin in combination with position.

here is an example

Tobias SN • Mar 8 '20

I generally use this website: howtocenterincss.com

mark l chaves • Mar 9 '20 • Edited

Nice.

Just to add, I usually give the flex container the responsibility of aligning its children. E.g.

<section>
  <div id="object"></div>
  <div>Hello World!</div>
</section>

section {
  height: 100vh;
  overflow: hidden;
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  justify-content: center;
  align-items: center; /* To vertically align all items added to the flex--not just one. */
}

Then any time you add another child, they will automagically align in the centre. In the example above, the children will align in one column because I specified flex-direction: column;.

Demo on CodePen.

Question @mindset ,

Why define the .element class twice on top of each other? Is there an advantage to that?

Here's how I would have done it.

Jayesh Tembhekar ⚡ • Mar 9 '20

Not an advantage, just to separate main transform properties for easy understanding 😅

mark l chaves • Mar 9 '20 • Edited

Ok. Cool. I typically don't see that style unless it's a mistake. That's why I asked.

If you want to be more OO-like, I would delegate alignment to another class. Then add that class to the class list in the HTML. Like what I've shared with you above. Similar to multiple inheritance.

Then .demo-box and .centre-me are reusable.

Thanks!

Habdul Hazeez • Apr 12 '20

With CSS Grid:

.selector {
    display: grid;
    place-items: center;
}

I wrote about it in the following post:

My WebDev Notes: Center page elements with CSS Grid

Habdul Hazeez ・ Apr 3 ・ 3 min read

#html #css

Dima • Mar 8 '20 • Edited

display: flex for parent
margin: auto for centered block

Adithya Sreyaj • Mar 8 '20

Flex for life 🧡

Khaled Breaker • Mar 10 '20

just add to the parent div {

display: flex;
justify-content: center;
align-items: center;

}

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