How to vertically center a container in Bootstrap?

Question

I'm looking for a way to vertically center the container div inside the jumbotron and to set it in the middle of the page.

The .jumbotron has to be adapted to the full height and width of the screen. The .container div has a width of 1025px and should be in the middle of the page (vertically center).

I want this page to have the jumbotron adapted to the height and width of the screen along with the container vertically center to the jumbotron. How can I achieve it?

.jumbotron {
  height:100%;
  width:100%;
}
.container {
  width:1025px;
}
.jumbotron .container {
  max-width: 100%;
} 

<link href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/twitter-bootstrap/3.0.0/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<div class="jumbotron">
    <div class="container text-center">
        <h1>The easiest and powerful way</h1>
        <div class="row">
            <div class="col-md-7">
                 <div class="top-bg"></div>
            </div>

            <div class="col-md-5 iPhone-features" style="margin-left:-25px;">
                <ul class="top-features">
                    <li>
                        <span><i class="fa fa-random simple_bg top-features-bg"></i></span>
                        <p><strong>Redirect</strong><br>Visitors where they converts more.</p>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <span><i class="fa fa-cogs simple_bg top-features-bg"></i></span>
                        <p><strong>Track</strong><br>Views, Clicks and Conversions.</p>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <span><i class="fa fa-check simple_bg top-features-bg"></i></span>
                        <p><strong>Check</strong><br>Constantly the status of your links.</p>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <span><i class="fa fa-users simple_bg top-features-bg"></i></span>
                        <p><strong>Collaborate</strong><br>With Customers, Partners and Co-Workers.</p>
                    </li>
                        <a href="pricing-and-signup.html" class="btn-primary btn h2 lightBlue get-Started-btn">GET STARTED</a>
                        <h6 class="get-Started-sub-btn">FREE VERSION AVAILABLE!</h6>
                </ul>
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

Solution 1

The Flexible box way

Vertical alignment is now very simple by the use of Flexible box layout. Nowadays, this method is supported in a wide range of web browsers except Internet Explorer 8 & 9. Therefore we'd need to use some hacks/polyfills or different approaches for IE8/9.

In the following I'll show you how to do that in only 3 lines of text (regardless of old flexbox syntax).

Note: it's better to use an additional class instead of altering .jumbotron to achieve the vertical alignment. I'd use vertical-center class name for instance.

Example Here (A Mirror on jsbin).

<div class="jumbotron vertical-center"> <!-- 
                      ^--- Added class  -->
  <div class="container">
    ...
  </div>
</div>

.vertical-center {
  min-height: 100%;  /* Fallback for browsers do NOT support vh unit */
  min-height: 100vh; /* These two lines are counted as one :-)       */

  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
}

Important notes (Considered in the demo):

1. A percentage values of height or min-height properties is relative to the height of the parent element, therefore you should specify the height of the parent explicitly.

2. Vendor prefixed / old flexbox syntax omitted in the posted snippet due to brevity, but exist in the online example.

3. In some of old web browsers such as Firefox 9 ^{(in which I've tested)}, the flex container - .vertical-center in this case - won't take the available space inside the parent, therefore we need to specify the width property like: width: 100%.

4. Also in some of web browsers as mentioned above, the flex item - .container in this case - may not appear at the center horizontally. It seems the applied left/right margin of auto doesn't have any effect on the flex item.
   Therefore we need to align it by box-pack / justify-content.

For further details and/or vertical alignment of columns, you could refer to the topic below:

• vertical-align with Bootstrap 3

---

The traditional way for legacy web browsers

This is the old answer I wrote at the time I answered this question. This method has been discussed here and it's supposed to work in Internet Explorer 8 and 9 as well. I'll explain it in short:

In inline flow, an inline level element can be aligned vertically to the middle by vertical-align: middle declaration. Spec from W3C:

middle
Align the vertical midpoint of the box with the baseline of the parent box plus half the x-height of the parent.

In cases that the parent - .vertical-center element in this case - has an explicit height, by any chance if we could have a child element having the exact same height of the parent, we would be able to move the baseline of the parent to the midpoint of the full-height child and surprisingly make our desired in-flow child - the .container - aligned to the center vertically.

Getting all together

That being said, we could create a full-height element within the .vertical-center by ::before or ::after pseudo elements and also change the default display type of it and the other child, the .container to inline-block.

Then use vertical-align: middle; to align the inline elements vertically.

Here you go:

<div class="jumbotron vertical-center">
  <div class="container">
    ...
  </div>
</div>

.vertical-center {
  height:100%;
  width:100%;

  text-align: center;  /* align the inline(-block) elements horizontally */
  font: 0/0 a;         /* remove the gap between inline(-block) elements */
}

.vertical-center:before {    /* create a full-height inline block pseudo=element */
  content: " ";
  display: inline-block;
  vertical-align: middle;    /* vertical alignment of the inline element */
  height: 100%;
}

.vertical-center > .container {
  max-width: 100%;

  display: inline-block;
  vertical-align: middle;  /* vertical alignment of the inline element */
                           /* reset the font property */
  font: 16px/1 "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
}

WORKING DEMO.

Also, to prevent unexpected issues in extra small screens, you can reset the height of the pseudo-element to auto or 0 or change its display type to none if needed so:

@media (max-width: 768px) {
  .vertical-center:before {
    height: auto;
    /* Or */
    display: none;
  }
}

UPDATED DEMO

And one more thing:

If there are footer/header sections around the container, it's better to position that elements properly (relative, absolute? up to you.) and add a higher z-index value (for assurance) to keep them always on the top of the others.

Solution 2

Update 2021

Bootstrap 5 still use flexbox, so the methods of vertical centering are the same as Bootstrap 4...

Bootstrap 4 use flexbox, so the method of vertical centering is much easier and doesn't require extra CSS.

Just use the d-flex and align-items-center utility classes..

<div class="jumbotron d-flex align-items-center">
  <div class="container">
    content
  </div>
</div>

http://codeply.com/go/ui6ABmMTLv

Important: Vertical centering is relative to height. The parent container of the items you're attempting to center must have a defined height. If you want the height of the page use vh-100 or min-vh-100 on the parent! For example:

<div class="jumbotron d-flex align-items-center min-vh-100">
  <div class="container text-center">
    I am centered vertically
  </div>
</div>

---

Solution 3

add Bootstrap.css then add this to your css

   
html, body{height:100%; margin:0;padding:0}
 
.container-fluid{
  height:100%;
  display:table;
  width: 100%;
  padding: 0;
}
 
.row-fluid {height: 100%; display:table-cell; vertical-align: middle;}
 
 

.centering {
  float:none;
  margin:0 auto;
}

Now call in your page 

<div class="container-fluid">
    <div class="row-fluid">
        <div class="centering text-center">
           Am in the Center Now :-)
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

Solution 4

My prefered technique :

body {
  display: table;
  position: absolute;
  height: 100%;
  width: 100%;
}

.jumbotron {
   display: table-cell;
   vertical-align: middle;
}

---

Demo

body {
  display: table;
  position: absolute;
  height: 100%;
  width: 100%;
}

.jumbotron {
   display: table-cell;
   vertical-align: middle;
}

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.6/css/bootstrap.min.css">
<div class="jumbotron vertical-center">
  <div class="container text-center">
    <h1>The easiest and powerful way</h1>
    <div class="row">
      <div class="col-md-7">
        <div class="top-bg">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.</div>
      </div>

      <div class="col-md-5 iPhone-features">
        <ul class="top-features">
          <li>
            <span><i class="fa fa-random simple_bg top-features-bg"></i></span>
            <p><strong>Redirect</strong><br>Visitors where they converts more.</p>
          </li>
          <li>
            <span><i class="fa fa-cogs simple_bg top-features-bg"></i></span>
            <p><strong>Track</strong><br>Views, Clicks and Conversions.</p>
          </li>
          <li>
            <span><i class="fa fa-check simple_bg top-features-bg"></i></span>
            <p><strong>Check</strong><br>Constantly the status of your links.</p>
          </li>
          <li>
            <span><i class="fa fa-users simple_bg top-features-bg"></i></span>
            <p><strong>Collaborate</strong><br>With Customers, Partners and Co-Workers.</p>
          </li>
          <a href="pricing-and-signup.html" class="btn-primary btn h2 lightBlue get-Started-btn">GET STARTED</a>
          <h6 class="get-Started-sub-btn">FREE VERSION AVAILABLE!</h6>
        </ul>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

See also this Fiddle!

Solution 5

Tested in IE, Firefox, and Chrome.

.parent-container {
    position: relative;
    height:100%;
    width: 100%;
}

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

<div class="parent-container">
    <div class="child-container">
        <h2>Header Text</h2>
        <span>Some Text</span>
    </div>
</div>

Found on https://css-tricks.com/centering-css-complete-guide/

View more solutions

Comments

[user1012181]

let us continue this discussion in chat

[xxxbence]

html AND body { height: 100%; } is the key

[Abraham Brookes]

This is all well and good, but as soon as you add display: flex to a .container, it causes the child .rows to flip out. It seems like the flexbox way would therefore require us to forgo using some of the main bootstrap features?

[TylerH]

This appears to just copy Zim's answer.

[seedme]

or if vh is not the most convenient way, one can also use min-height-50/75/100...

[Zim]

@seedme -- there are no min-height-* classes in Bootstrap

[João Pimentel Ferreira]

Excellent, thanks, perhaps make a minimal example, i.e. without jumbotron nor even container nor text-center, since the question is only about vertically alignment

[Isaac Michaan]

well done, no css involved!