Vertical and horizontal align (middle and center) with CSS

This blog post describes two methods of centering a div both horizontally and vertically. One uses only CSS and will work with divs that have a fixed size; the other uses jQuery and will work divs for which you do not know the size in advance.

I've duplicated the CSS and jQuery examples from the blog post's demo here:

CSS

Assuming you have a div with a class of .classname, the css below should work.

The left:50%; top:50%; sets the top left corner of the div to the center of the screen; the margin:-75px 0 0 -135px; moves it to the left and up by half of the width and height of the fixed-size div respectively.

.className{
    width:270px;
    height:150px;
    position:absolute;
    left:50%;
    top:50%;
    margin:-75px 0 0 -135px;
}

jQuery

$(document).ready(function(){
    $(window).resize(function(){
        $('.className').css({
            position:'absolute',
            left: ($(window).width() - $('.className').outerWidth())/2,
            top: ($(window).height() - $('.className').outerHeight())/2
        });
    });
    // To initially run the function:
    $(window).resize();
});

Here's a demo of the techniques in practice.

This site gives some options on vertically centering your div: http://www.jakpsatweb.cz/css/css-vertical-center-solution.html

There are many methods :

1. Center horizontal and vertical align of an element with fixed measure

CSS

 <div style="width:200px;height:100px;position:absolute;left:50%;top:50%;
margin-left:-100px;margin-top:-50px;">
<!–content–>
</div> 

---

2 . Center horizontally and vertically a single line of text

CSS

<div style="width:400px;height:200px;text-align:center;line-height:200px;">
<!–content–>
</div>  

---

3 . Center horizontal and vertical align of an element with no specific measure

CSS

<div style="display:table;height:300px;text-align:center;">
<div style="display:table-cell;vertical-align:middle;">
<!–content–>
</div>
</div>  

---

This isn't as easy to do as one might expect -- you can really only do vertical alignment if you know the height of your container. IF this is the case, you can do it with absolute positioning.

The concept is to set the top / left positions at 50%, and then use negative margins (set to half the height / width) to pull the container back to being centered.

Example: http://jsbin.com/ipawe/edit

Basic CSS:

#mydiv { 
    position: absolute;
    top: 50%;
    left: 50%;
    height: 400px;
    width: 700px;
    margin-top: -200px; /* -(1/2 height) */
    margin-left: -350px; /* -(1/2 width) */
  }