How can I horizontally align my divs? - css

Question

For some reason my divs won't center horizontally in a containing div:
.row {
width: 100%;
margin: 0 auto;
}
.block {
width: 100px;
float: left;
}
<div class="row">
<div class="block">Lorem</div>
<div class="block">Ipsum</div>
<div class="block">Dolor</div>
</div>
And sometimes there is a row div with just one block div in it. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

To achieve what you are trying to do:
Consider using display: inline-block instead of float.

Answer 2

Try this:
.row {
width: 100%;
text-align: center; // center the content of the container
}
.block {
width: 100px;
display: inline-block; // display inline with ability to provide width/height
}​
DEMO
having margin: 0 auto; along with width: 100% is useless because you element will take the full space.
float: left will float the elements to the left, until there is no space left, thus they will go on a new line. Use display: inline-block to be able to display elements inline, but with the ability to provide size (as opposed to display: inline where width/height are ignored)

Answer 3

Alignments in CSS had been a nightmare. Luckily, a new standard is introduced by W3C in 2009: Flexible Box. There is a good tutorial about it here. Personally I find it much more logical and easier to understand than other methods.
.row {
width: 100%;
display: flex;
flex-direction: row;
justify-content: center;
}
.block {
width: 100px;
}
<div class="row">
<div class="block">Lorem</div>
<div class="block">Ipsum</div>
<div class="block">Dolor</div>
</div>

Answer 4

Using FlexBox:
<div class="row">
<div class="block">Lorem</div>
<div class="block">Ipsum</div>
<div class="block">Dolor</div>
</div>
.row {
width: 100%;
margin: 0 auto;
display: flex;
justify-content: center; /* for centering 3 blocks in the center */
/* justify-content: space-between; for space in between */
}
.block {
width: 100px;
}
The latest trend is to use Flex or CSS Grid instead of using Float. However, still some 1% browsers don't support Flex. But who really cares about old IE users anyway ;)
Fiddle: Check Here

Answer 5

Another working example, using display: inline-block and text-align: center
HTML:
<div class='container'>
<div class='row'>
<div class='btn'>Hello</div>
<div class='btn'>World</div>
</div>
<div class='clear'></div>
</div>
CSS:
.container {
...
}
.row {
text-align: center;
}
.btn {
display: inline-block;
margin-right: 6px;
background-color: #EEE;
}
.clear {
clear: both;
}
Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/fNvgS/

Answer 6

Although not covering this question (because you want to align the <div>s inside the container) but directly related: if you wanted to align just one div horizontally you could do this:
#MyDIV
{
display: table;
margin: 0 auto;
}

Answer 7

If elements are to be displayed in one line and IE 6/7 do not matter, consider using display: table and display: table-cell instead of float.
inline-block leads to horizontal gaps between elements and requires zeroing that gaps. The most simple way is to set font-size: 0 for parent element and then restore font-size for child elements that have display: inline-block by setting their font-size to a px or rem value.

Answer 8

I tried the accepted answer, but eventually found that:
margin: 0 auto;
width: anything less than 100%;
Works well so far.

Answer 9

I've use this two approaches when I need to handle horizontal div alignment.first (Center Aligning Using the margin Property):
.center-horizontal-align {
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
width: (less than 100%) or in px
}
Setting the left and right margins to auto specifies that they should split the available margin equally. Center-aligning has no effect if the width is 100%.
and the second:
.center-horizontal-align {
display: table
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
}
Using the second approach is convenient when you have several elements and you want all of them to be centred in one table cell(i.e. several buttons in one cell).

Answer 10

instead of float use flex
.row {
display: flex;
flex-direction: row;
}