How to vertically center <div> inside the parent element with CSS?

Question

I'm trying to make a small username and password input box.

I would like to ask, how do you vertically align a div?

What I have is:

<div id="Login" class="BlackStrip floatright">
   <div id="Username" class="floatleft">Username<br>Password</div>
   <div id="Form" class="floatleft">
   <form action="" method="post">
      <input type="text" border="0"><br>
      <input type="password" border="0">
   </form>
   </div>
</div>

How can I make the div with id Username and Form to vertically align itself to the center? I've tried to put:

vertical-align: middle;

in CSS for the div with id Login, but it doesn't seem to work. Any help would be appreciated.

Solution 1

The best approach in modern browsers is to use flexbox:

#Login {
    display: flex;
    align-items: center;
}

Some browsers will need vendor prefixes. For older browsers without flexbox support (e.g. IE 9 and lower), you'll need to implement a fallback solution using one of the older methods.

Recommended Reading

• Browser support
• A Guide to Flexbox
• Using CSS Flexible Boxes

Solution 2

This can be done with 3 lines of CSS and is compatible back to (and including) IE9:

.element {
  position: relative;
  top: 50%;
  transform: translateY(-50%);
}

Example: http://jsfiddle.net/cas07zq8/

credit

Solution 3

You can vertically align a div in another div. See this example on JSFiddle or consider the example below.

HTML

<div class="outerDiv">
    <div class="innerDiv"> My Vertical Div </div>
</div>

CSS

.outerDiv {
    display: inline-flex;  // <-- This is responsible for vertical alignment
    height: 400px;
    background-color: red;
    color: white;
}

.innerDiv {
    margin: auto 5px;   // <-- This is responsible for vertical alignment
    background-color: green;   
}

The .innerDiv's margin must be in this format: margin: auto *px;

[Where, * is your desired value.]

display: inline-flex is supported in the latest (updated/current version) browsers with HTML5 support.

It may not work in Internet Explorer :P :)

Always try to define a height for any vertically aligned div (i.e. innerDiv) to counter compatibility issues.

Solution 4

I'm pretty late to the party, but I came up with this myself and it's one of my favorite quick hacks for vertical alignment. It's crazy simple, and easy to understand what's going on.

You use the :before css attribute to insert a div into the beginning of the parent div, give it display:inline-block and vertical-align:middle and then give those same properties to the child div. Since vertical-align is for alignment along a line, those inline divs will be considered a line.

Make the :before div height:100%, and the child div will automatically follow and align in the middle of a very tall "line."

.parent:before, .child {
    display:inline-block;
    vertical-align:middle;
}
.parent:before {
    content:""; // so that it shows up
    height:100%; // so it takes up the full height
}

Here's a fiddle to demonstrate what I'm talking about. The child div can be any height, and you never have to modify its margins/paddings.
And here's a more explanatory fiddle.

If you're not fond of :before, you can always manually put in a div.

<div class="parent">
    <div class="before"></div>
    <div class="child">
        content
    </div>
</div>

And then just reassign .parent:before to .parent .before

Solution 5

If you know the height, you can use absolute positioning with a negative margin-top like so:

#Login {
    width:400px;
    height:400px;
    position:absolute;
    top:50%;
    left:50%;
    margin-left:-200px; /* width / -2 */
    margin-top:-200px; /* height / -2 */
}

Otherwise, there's no real way to vertically center a div with just CSS

View more solutions

Comments

[sagarpatidar]

Have a look at. stackoverflow.com/questions/396145/…

[Sambhav Sharma]

M not so good with CSS, but out of so many solutions I came across, this one worked for me the best.

[Steve Breese]

This doesn't work in IE browser.

[Steve Breese]

working jsFiddle jsfiddle.net/breese/3puHE/10

[Barun]

why is the my link above not working?

[Steve Breese]

All the boxes (HTML, JavaScript, CSS) are empty.

[atilkan]

display:flex does the job without breaking something.

[atilkan]

@SteveBreese stop using ie. breakupwithie8.com

[user]

Doesn't work in Firefox (tested on version 40), although works with img tag in place of div.

[Amit Kumar]

This is awesome, just 3 lines and it worked like a charm.

[serge]

not compatible with IE9

[AuRise]

This is my personal favorite, especially when I can use it as a LESS or SASS mix-in.

[davidneedham]

This solution only works if you add the parts noted as being responsible for vertical alignment, AND the height on the outerDiv. Without the height, it doesn't work.

[Harry Bosh]

Breaks responsive design

[meshy]

To align horizontally, I added justify-content: center as well. (Not quite the same scenario though.)

[Salketer]

That's brilliant! First time I see it and I really wonder why as it's perfect. I've modified the CSS selector to .parent > * so I don't need a child selector anymore. That means I can use the class everywhere! I'd +1000

[Adam Copley]

Can you provide an example of how and why it breaks "responsive design" as a whole? Whether or not it breaks responsive design is a matter of your project's structure already in my opinion.

[Nishant]

WOAH .. thanks man, i had to remove flexbox from a slider because of it inserting extra divs between flex parent & child, this was the perfect solution.

[Sasha Chirico]

Awesome! But, why we need to insert a div before, instead to vertical-align directly the child div? (I see it not work, but why?)

[David Rector]

I was able to use this technique to include a secondary child div inside of the "child" div in the example. A media rule in my CSS file lets me then show the new child-child content to the right of the original content on wide screens and below it and smaller on narrow screens, and it's all still vertically centered. In other words, this works for me with more than just some text in that "child" div.

[thutt]

There is also display: inline-flex in case you want the parent element to stay, well, inline :)

[Danny Sullivan]

To stack divs one on top of the other, use flex-direction: column

[Bartando]

Flex is the worst method I've ever seen, so much pain with Bootstrap that I would more likely use Javascript over this ...

[Gabriel]

How about when you don't know the height?

[robocat]

Note: be careful if you are trying to centre anything with a 'display: inline-box'. The line-height of the contents can cause extra space below the inline-box, and the result is that the child is aligned slightly above centre. I am not sure what part of the html spec causes this, but I found it to be unobvious and it took a while to work out the reason that the children of the flexbox were not properly centred vertically.

[Ron16]

won't work on IE.

[Juyal Jee]

For me, just 2 more properties were required to make it work, display: flex; flex-direction: column;

[user5402026]

You literally saved my life. My boss, CJ, said if I don't get this done today I'm in big trouble. Also @meshy that worked like a charm ty