How to make padding:auto work in CSS?

auto is not a valid value for padding property, the only thing you can do is take out padding: 0; from the * declaration, else simply assign padding to respective property block.

If you remove padding: 0; from * {} than browser will apply default styles to your elements which will give you unexpected cross browser positioning offsets by few pixels, so it is better to assign padding: 0; using * and than if you want to override the padding, simply use another rule like

.container p {
   padding: 5px;
}

You should just scope your * selector to the specific areas that need the reset. .legacy * { }, etc.

The simplest supported solution is to either use margin

.element {
  display: block;
  margin: 0px auto;
}

Or use a second container around the element that has this margin applied. This will somewhat have the effect of padding: 0px auto if it did exist.

CSS

.element_wrapper {
  display: block;
  margin: 0px auto;
}
.element {
  background: blue;
}

HTML

<div class="element_wrapper">
  <div class="element">
    Hello world
  </div>
</div>