I am working on a web application where I want the content to fill the height of the entire screen.
The page has a header, which contains a logo, and account information. This could be an arbitrary height. I want the content div to fill the rest of the page to the bottom.
I have a header div and a content div. At the moment I am using a table for the layout like so:
CSS and HTML
#page {
height: 100%; width: 100%
}
#tdcontent {
height: 100%;
}
#content {
overflow: auto; /* or overflow: hidden; */
}
<table id="page">
<tr>
<td id="tdheader">
<div id="header">...</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td id="tdcontent">
<div id="content">...</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
The entire height of the page is filled, and no scrolling is required.
For anything inside the content div, setting top: 0; will put it right underneath the header. Sometimes the content will be a real table, with its height set to 100%. Putting header inside content will not allow this to work.
Is there a way to achieve the same effect without using the table?
Update:
Elements inside the content div will have heights set to percentages as well. So something at 100% inside the div will fill it to the bottom. As will two elements at 50%.
Update 2:
For instance, if the header takes up 20% of the screen's height, a table specified at 50% inside #content would take up 40% of the screen space. So far, wrapping the entire thing in a table is the only thing that works.
2015 update: the flexbox approach
There are two other answers briefly mentioning flexbox; however, that was more than two years ago, and they don't provide any examples. The specification for flexbox has definitely settled now.
Note: Though CSS Flexible Boxes Layout specification is at the Candidate Recommendation stage, not all browsers have implemented it. WebKit implementation must be prefixed with -webkit-; Internet Explorer implements an old version of the spec, prefixed with -ms-; Opera 12.10 implements the latest version of the spec, unprefixed. See the compatibility table on each property for an up-to-date compatibility status.
(taken from https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/CSS/Flexible_boxes)
All major browsers and IE11+ support Flexbox. For IE 10 or older, you can use the FlexieJS shim.
To check current support you can also see here:
http://caniuse.com/#feat=flexbox
Working example
With flexbox you can easily switch between any of your rows or columns either having fixed dimensions, content-sized dimensions or remaining-space dimensions. In my example I have set the header to snap to its content (as per the OPs question), I've added a footer to show how to add a fixed-height region and then set the content area to fill up the remaining space.
html,
body {
height: 100%;
margin: 0;
}
.box {
display: flex;
flex-flow: column;
height: 100%;
}
.box .row {
border: 1px dotted grey;
}
.box .row.header {
flex: 0 1 auto;
/* The above is shorthand for:
flex-grow: 0,
flex-shrink: 1,
flex-basis: auto
*/
}
.box .row.content {
flex: 1 1 auto;
}
.box .row.footer {
flex: 0 1 40px;
}
<!-- Obviously, you could use HTML5 tags like `header`, `footer` and `section` -->
<div class="box">
<div class="row header">
<p><b>header</b>
<br />
<br />(sized to content)</p>
</div>
<div class="row content">
<p>
<b>content</b>
(fills remaining space)
</p>
</div>
<div class="row footer">
<p><b>footer</b> (fixed height)</p>
</div>
</div>
In the CSS above, the flex property shorthands the flex-grow, flex-shrink, and flex-basis properties to establish the flexibility of the flex items. Mozilla has a good introduction to the flexible boxes model.
There really isn't a sound, cross-browser way to do this in CSS. Assuming your layout has complexities, you need to use JavaScript to set the element's height. The essence of what you need to do is:
Element Height = Viewport height - element.offset.top - desired bottom margin
Once you can get this value and set the element's height, you need to attach event handlers to both the window onload and onresize so that you can fire your resize function.
Also, assuming your content could be larger than the viewport, you will need to set overflow-y to scroll.
The original post is more than 3 years ago. I guess many people who come to this post like me are looking for an app-like layout solution, say a somehow fixed header, footer, and full height content taking up the rest screen. If so, this post may help, it works on IE7+, etc.
http://blog.stevensanderson.com/2011/10/05/full-height-app-layouts-a-css-trick-to-make-it-easier/
And here are some snippets from that post:
#media screen {
/* start of screen rules. */
/* Generic pane rules */
body { margin: 0 }
.row, .col { overflow: hidden; position: absolute; }
.row { left: 0; right: 0; }
.col { top: 0; bottom: 0; }
.scroll-x { overflow-x: auto; }
.scroll-y { overflow-y: auto; }
.header.row { height: 75px; top: 0; }
.body.row { top: 75px; bottom: 50px; }
.footer.row { height: 50px; bottom: 0; }
/* end of screen rules. */
}
<div class="header row" style="background:yellow;">
<h2>My header</h2>
</div>
<div class="body row scroll-y" style="background:lightblue;">
<p>The body</p>
</div>
<div class="footer row" style="background:#e9e9e9;">
My footer
</div>
Instead of using tables in the markup, you could use CSS tables.
Markup
<body>
<div>hello </div>
<div>there</div>
</body>
(Relevant) CSS
body
{
display:table;
width:100%;
}
div
{
display:table-row;
}
div+ div
{
height:100%;
}
FIDDLE1 and FIDDLE2
Some advantages of this method are:
1) Less markup
2) Markup is more semantic than tables, because this is not tabular data.
3) Browser support is very good: IE8+, All modern browsers and mobile devices (caniuse)
Just for completeness, here are the equivalent Html elements to css properties for the The CSS table model
table { display: table }
tr { display: table-row }
thead { display: table-header-group }
tbody { display: table-row-group }
tfoot { display: table-footer-group }
col { display: table-column }
colgroup { display: table-column-group }
td, th { display: table-cell }
caption { display: table-caption }
CSS only Approach (If height is known/fixed)
When you want the middle element to span across entire page vertically, you can use calc() which is introduced in CSS3.
Assuming we have a fixed height header and footer elements and we want the section tag to take entire available vertical height...
Demo
Assumed markup and your CSS should be
html,
body {
height: 100%;
}
header {
height: 100px;
background: grey;
}
section {
height: calc(100% - (100px + 150px));
/* Adding 100px of header and 150px of footer */
background: tomato;
}
footer {
height: 150px;
background-color: blue;
}
<header>100px</header>
<section>Expand me for remaining space</section>
<footer>150px</footer>
So here, what am doing is, adding up the height of elements and than deducting from 100% using calc() function.
Just make sure that you use height: 100%; for the parent elements.
A simple solution, using flexbox:
html,
body {
height: 100%;
}
body {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
}
.content {
flex-grow: 1;
}
<body>
<div>header</div>
<div class="content"></div>
</body>
Codepen sample
An alternate solution, with a div centered within the content div
Used:
height: calc(100vh - 110px);
code:
.header { height: 60px; top: 0; background-color: green}
.body {
height: calc(100vh - 110px); /*50+60*/
background-color: gray;
}
.footer { height: 50px; bottom: 0; }
<div class="header">
<h2>My header</h2>
</div>
<div class="body">
<p>The body</p>
</div>
<div class="footer">
My footer
</div>
How about you simply use vh which stands for view height in CSS...
Look at the code snippet I created for you below and run it:
body {
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}
.full-height {
width: 100px;
height: 100vh;
background: red;
}
<div class="full-height">
</div>
Also, look at the image below which I created for you:
None of the solutions posted work when you need the bottom div to scroll when the content is too tall. Here's a solution that works in that case:
.table {
display: table;
}
.table-row {
display: table-row;
}
.table-cell {
display: table-cell;
}
.container {
width: 400px;
height: 300px;
}
.header {
background: cyan;
}
.body {
background: yellow;
height: 100%;
}
.body-content-outer-wrapper {
height: 100%;
}
.body-content-inner-wrapper {
height: 100%;
position: relative;
overflow: auto;
}
.body-content {
position: absolute;
top: 0;
bottom: 0;
left: 0;
right: 0;
}
<div class="table container">
<div class="table-row header">
<div>This is the header whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the header whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the header whose height is unknown</div>
</div>
<div class="table-row body">
<div class="table-cell body-content-outer-wrapper">
<div class="body-content-inner-wrapper">
<div class="body-content">
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
<div>This is the scrollable content whose height is unknown</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Original source: Filling the Remaining Height of a Container While Handling Overflow in CSS
JSFiddle live preview
CSS3 Simple Way
height: calc(100% - 10px); // 10px is height of your first div...
all major browsers these days support it, so go ahead if you don't have requirement to support vintage browsers.
It could be done purely by CSS using vh:
#page {
display:block;
width:100%;
height:95vh !important;
overflow:hidden;
}
#tdcontent {
float:left;
width:100%;
display:block;
}
#content {
float:left;
width:100%;
height:100%;
display:block;
overflow:scroll;
}
and the HTML
<div id="page">
<div id="tdcontent"></div>
<div id="content"></div>
</div>
I checked it, It works in all major browsers: Chrome, IE, and FireFox
Disclaimer: The accepted answer gives the idea of the solution, but I'm finding it a bit bloated with an unnecessary wrapper and css rules. Below is a solution with very few css rules.
HTML 5
<body>
<header>Header with an arbitrary height</header>
<main>
This container will grow so as to take the remaining height
</main>
</body>
CSS
body {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
min-height: 100vh; /* body takes whole viewport's height */
}
main {
flex: 1; /* this will make the container take the free space */
}
Solution above uses viewport units and flexbox, and is therefore IE10+, providing you use the old syntax for IE10.
Codepen to play with: link to codepen
Or this one, for those needing the main container to be scrollable in case of overflowing content: link to codepen
I've been searching for an answer for this as well. If you are fortunate enough to be able to target IE8 and up, you can use display:table and related values to get the rendering rules of tables with block-level elements including div.
If you are even luckier and your users are using top-tier browsers (for example, if this is an intranet app on computers you control, like my latest project is), you can use the new Flexible Box Layout in CSS3!
What worked for me (with a div within another div and I assume in all other circumstances) is to set the bottom padding to 100%. That is, add this to your css / stylesheet:
padding-bottom: 100%;
In Bootstrap:
CSS Styles:
html, body {
height: 100%;
}
1) Just fill the height of the remaining screen space:
<body class="d-flex flex-column">
<div class="d-flex flex-column flex-grow-1">
<header>Header</header>
<div>Content</div>
<footer class="mt-auto">Footer</footer>
</div>
</body>
2) fill the height of the remaining screen space and aligning content to the middle of the parent element:
<body class="d-flex flex-column">
<div class="d-flex flex-column flex-grow-1">
<header>Header</header>
<div class="d-flex flex-column flex-grow-1 justify-content-center">Content</div>
<footer class="mt-auto">Footer</footer>
</div>
</body>
If you can deal with not supporting old browsers (that is, MSIE 9 or older), you can do this with Flexible Box Layout Module which is already W3C CR. That module allows other nice tricks, too, such as re-ordering content.
Unfortunately, MSIE 9 or lesser do not support this and you have to use vendor prefix for the CSS property for every browser other than Firefox. Hopefully other vendors drop the prefix soon, too.
An another choice would be CSS Grid Layout but that has even less support from stable versions of browsers. In practice, only MSIE 10 supports this.
Update year 2020: All modern browsers support both display: flex and display: grid. The only one missing is support for subgrid which in only supported by Firefox. Note that MSIE does not support either by the spec but if you're willing to add MSIE specific CSS hacks, it can be made to behave. I would suggest simply ignoring MSIE because even Microsoft says it should not be used anymore. Microsoft Edge supports these features just fine (except for subgrid support since is shares the Blink rendering engine with Chrome).
Example using display: grid:
html, body
{
min-height: 100vh;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}
body
{
display: grid;
grid:
"myheader" auto
"mymain" minmax(0,1fr)
"myfooter" auto /
minmax(10rem, 90rem);
}
header
{
grid-area: myheader;
background: yellow;
}
main
{
grid-area: mymain;
background: pink;
align-self: center
/* or stretch
+ display: flex;
+ flex-direction: column;
+ justify-content: center; */
}
footer
{
grid-area: myfooter;
background: cyan;
}
<header>Header content</header>
<main>Main content which should be centered and the content length may change.
<details><summary>Collapsible content</summary>
<p>Here's some text to cause more vertical space to be used.</p>
<p>Here's some text to cause more vertical space to be used (2).</p>
<p>Here's some text to cause more vertical space to be used (3).</p>
<p>Here's some text to cause more vertical space to be used (4).</p>
<p>Here's some text to cause more vertical space to be used (5).</p>
</details>
</main>
<footer>Footer content</footer>
Example using display: flex:
html, body
{
min-height: 100vh;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}
body
{
display: flex;
}
main
{
background: pink;
align-self: center;
}
<main>Main content which should be centered and the content length may change.
<details><summary>Collapsible content</summary>
<p>Here's some text to cause more vertical space to be used.</p>
<p>Here's some text to cause more vertical space to be used (2).</p>
<p>Here's some text to cause more vertical space to be used (3).</p>
<p>Here's some text to cause more vertical space to be used (4).</p>
<p>Here's some text to cause more vertical space to be used (5).</p>
</details>
</main>
There's a ton of answers now, but I found using height: 100vh; to work on the div element that needs to fill up the entire vertical space available.
In this way, I do not need to play around with display or positioning. This came in handy when using Bootstrap to make a dashboard wherein I had a sidebar and a main. I wanted the main to stretch and fill the entire vertical space so that I could apply a background colour.
div {
height: 100vh;
}
Supports IE9 and up: click to see the link
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>Test</title>
<style type="text/css">
body
,html
{
height: 100%;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
color: #FFF;
}
#header
{
float: left;
width: 100%;
background: red;
}
#content
{
height: 100%;
overflow: auto;
background: blue;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="content">
<div id="header">
Header
<p>Header stuff</p>
</div>
Content
<p>Content stuff</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>
In all sane browsers, you can put the "header" div before the content, as a sibling, and the same CSS will work. However, IE7- does not interpret the height correctly if the float is 100% in that case, so the header needs to be IN the content, as above. The overflow: auto will cause double scroll bars on IE (which always has the viewport scrollbar visible, but disabled), but without it, the content will clip if it overflows.
CSS Grid Solution
Just defining the body with display:grid and the grid-template-rows using auto and the fr value property.
* {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
html {
height: 100%;
}
body {
min-height: 100%;
display: grid;
grid-template-rows: auto 1fr auto;
}
header {
padding: 1em;
background: pink;
}
main {
padding: 1em;
background: lightblue;
}
footer {
padding: 2em;
background: lightgreen;
}
main:hover {
height: 2000px;
/* demos expansion of center element */
}
<header>HEADER</header>
<main>MAIN</main>
<footer>FOOTER</footer>
A Complete Guide to Grids # CSS-Tricks.com
This is my own minimal version of Pebbl's solution. Took forever to find the trick to get it to work in IE11. (Also tested in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari.)
html {
height: 100%;
}
body {
height: 100%;
margin: 0;
}
section {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
height: 100%;
}
div:first-child {
background: gold;
}
div:last-child {
background: plum;
flex-grow: 1;
}
<body>
<section>
<div>FIT</div>
<div>GROW</div>
</section>
</body>
I wresteled with this for a while and ended up with the following:
Since it is easy to make the content DIV the same height as the parent but apparently difficult to make it the parent height minus the header height I decided to make content div full height but position it absolutely in the top left corner and then define a padding for the top which has the height of the header. This way the content displays neatly under the header and fills the whole remaining space:
body {
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
height: 100%;
overflow: hidden;
}
#header {
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 0;
height: 50px;
}
#content {
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 0;
padding-top: 50px;
height: 100%;
}
Why not just like this?
html, body {
height: 100%;
}
#containerInput {
background-image: url('../img/edit_bg.jpg');
height: 40%;
}
#containerControl {
background-image: url('../img/control_bg.jpg');
height: 60%;
}
Giving you html and body (in that order) a height and then just give your elements a height?
Works for me
You can actually use display: table to split the area into two elements (header and content), where the header can vary in height and the content fills the remaining space. This works with the whole page, as well as when the area is simply the content of another element positioned with position set to relative, absolute or fixed. It will work as long as the parent element has a non-zero height.
See this fiddle and also the code below:
CSS:
body, html {
height: 100%;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
p {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
.additional-padding {
height: 50px;
background-color: #DE9;
}
.as-table {
display: table;
height: 100%;
width: 100%;
}
.as-table-row {
display: table-row;
height: 100%;
}
#content {
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
background-color: #33DD44;
}
HTML:
<div class="as-table">
<div id="header">
<p>This header can vary in height, it also doesn't have to be displayed as table-row. It will simply take the necessary space and the rest below will be taken by the second div which is displayed as table-row. Now adding some copy to artificially expand the header.</p>
<div class="additional-padding"></div>
</div>
<div class="as-table-row">
<div id="content">
<p>This is the actual content that takes the rest of the available space.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
style="height:100vh"
solved the problem for me. In my case I applied this to the required div
Vincent, I'll answer again using your new requirements. Since you don't care about the content being hidden if it's too long, you don't need to float the header. Just put overflow hidden on the html and body tags, and set #content height to 100%. The content will always be longer than the viewport by the height of the header, but it'll be hidden and won't cause scrollbars.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>Test</title>
<style type="text/css">
body, html {
height: 100%;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
overflow: hidden;
color: #FFF;
}
p {
margin: 0;
}
#header {
background: red;
}
#content {
position: relative;
height: 100%;
background: blue;
}
#content #positioned {
position: absolute;
top: 0;
right: 0;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="header">
Header
<p>Header stuff</p>
</div>
<div id="content">
Content
<p>Content stuff</p>
<div id="positioned">Positioned Content</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
For mobile app i use only VH and VW
<div class="container">
<div class="title">Title</div>
<div class="content">Content</div>
<div class="footer">Footer</div>
</div>
.container {
width: 100vw;
height: 100vh;
font-size: 5vh;
}
.title {
height: 20vh;
background-color: red;
}
.content {
height: 60vh;
background: blue;
}
.footer {
height: 20vh;
background: green;
}
Demo - https://jsfiddle.net/u763ck92/
Try this
var sizeFooter = function(){
$(".webfooter")
.css("padding-bottom", "0px")
.css("padding-bottom", $(window).height() - $("body").height())
}
$(window).resize(sizeFooter);
I had the same problem but I could not make work the solution with flexboxes above. So I created my own template, that includes:
a header with a fixed size element
a footer
a side bar with a scrollbar that occupies the remaining height
content
I used flexboxes but in a more simple way, using only properties display: flex and flex-direction: row|column:
I do use angular and I want my component sizes to be 100% of their parent element.
The key is to set the size (in percents) for all parents inorder to limit their size. In the following example myapp height has 100% of the viewport.
The main component has 90% of the viewport, because header and footer have 5%.
I posted my template here: https://jsfiddle.net/abreneliere/mrjh6y2e/3
body{
margin: 0;
color: white;
height: 100%;
}
div#myapp
{
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
background-color: red; /* <-- painful color for your eyes ! */
height: 100%; /* <-- if you remove this line, myapp has no limited height */
}
div#main /* parent div for sidebar and content */
{
display: flex;
width: 100%;
height: 90%;
}
div#header {
background-color: #333;
height: 5%;
}
div#footer {
background-color: #222;
height: 5%;
}
div#sidebar {
background-color: #666;
width: 20%;
overflow-y: auto;
}
div#content {
background-color: #888;
width: 80%;
overflow-y: auto;
}
div.fized_size_element {
background-color: #AAA;
display: block;
width: 100px;
height: 50px;
margin: 5px;
}
Html:
<body>
<div id="myapp">
<div id="header">
HEADER
<div class="fized_size_element"></div>
</div>
<div id="main">
<div id="sidebar">
SIDEBAR
<div class="fized_size_element"></div>
<div class="fized_size_element"></div>
<div class="fized_size_element"></div>
<div class="fized_size_element"></div>
<div class="fized_size_element"></div>
<div class="fized_size_element"></div>
<div class="fized_size_element"></div>
<div class="fized_size_element"></div>
</div>
<div id="content">
CONTENT
</div>
</div>
<div id="footer">
FOOTER
</div>
</div>
</body>
Spinning off the idea of Mr. Alien...
This seems a cleaner solution than the popular flex box one for CSS3 enabled browsers.
Simply use min-height(instead of height) with calc() to the content block.
The calc() starts with 100% and subtracts heights of headers and footers (need to include padding values)
Using "min-height" instead of "height" is particularly useful so it can work with javascript rendered content and JS frameworks like Angular2. Otherwise, the calculation will not push the footer to the bottom of the page once the javascript rendered content is visible.
Here is a simple example of a header and footer using 50px height and 20px padding for both.
Html:
<body>
<header></header>
<div class="content"></div>
<footer></footer>
</body>
Css:
.content {
min-height: calc(100% - (50px + 20px + 20px + 50px + 20px + 20px));
}
Of course, the math can be simplified but you get the idea...
I found a quite simple solution, because for me it was just a design issue.
I wanted the rest of the Page not to be white below the red footer.
So i set the pages background color to red. And the contents backgroundcolor to white.
With the contents height set to eg. 20em or 50% an almost empty page won't leave the whole page red.
I have a centered div with a width of 700px, with a middle part that must become a right column when viewport is > to some width. I used absolute positioning for that purpose but like this column must be responsive, I don't know its width.
First, I would like to know what is the rule for how behave the width of absolute positioned elements which are out of their relative parent. Absolute positioning should use the width of their relative parent but when the element is out of that parent, the element is shrinked. If there is a word without space, it extends the element accordingly and everything follows. I don't understand how it works and how predict that behavior. It's the same when that element without width is supposed to start overflowing out of its parent.
Then, is there a way to make this column fills the right until it reaches the limit of the window without overflowing (with a little margin-right)? If I fix a big width on that column assuming it will be the max-width that column will achieve in the biggest viewport and use the overflow property to hide what is out of the window, of course, the absolute positioned element is just cut.
I really don't know how to make that responsive because it seems like absolute positioning removes the element from the flow, it is not made for my purpose. Of course, no JS, please. And it must support Internet Explorer since IE8.
The only solution that comes to my mind is to duplicate the content and use display:none/block to switch blocks with media queries but it means redundant code. I tried with a complicated display:table layout until I found that colspan doesn't exist.
(Just so you know, I have a left column too to take into consideration, the reason why I am using a three columns display:table layout. If that's relevant.)
Here is a simplified code:
I didn't put media queries but the aside-on-small-screen is obviously what it should look like on small screens, replacing the aside selector.
main{
overflow:hidden;
}
.colMain{
background-color:green;
margin-left:auto;
margin-right:auto;
position:relative;
width:300px;
}
.aside{
background-color:red;
position:absolute;
top:0px;
left:320px;
}
.aside-on-small-screen{
background-color:red;
}
<main>
<div class="colMain">
<div>stuff</div>
<div class="aside">aside that must extend all the way to the right until it reaches the window limit</div>
<div>stuff</div>
</div>
</main>
Thank you.
Used flexbox and assigned aside a percentage width. The details are in the CSS portion of Snippet.
Flexbox
justify-content: space-between
order
flex-shrink, flex-grow, flex-basis
Relative units of measurement
Viewport width/height vw and vh
Percentage
em
/* Optional Defaults and Resets */
* {
-ms-box-sizing: border-box;
box-sizing: border-box;
}
html {
font: 400 10px/1 Arial;
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
}
/*,
*:before,
*:after {
box-sizing: inherit;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: none;
}*/
body {
font: inherit;
font-size: 160%;
/* background: rgba(0, 0, 0, .2);*/
line-height: 1;
overflow: visible;
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
}
/* Demo Styles */
/* All outlines and backgrounds are for presentational purposes */
/* vw/vh viewport width/height 1vw/vh = 1% of viewport width/height */
main {
overflow: hidden;
/* width: 100vw;
height: 100vh;
background: rgba(0, 0, 255, .2);*/
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
min-height: 35em;
display: table;
}
/* Flexbox layout will automatically keep .aside to the right with the */
/* property justify-content: space-between; which keeps the max amount */
/* of even space between flex-items (which is .stuff and .aside) */
.colMain {
/* display: flex;
flex-direction: row;
flex-wrap: nowrap;
justify-content: space-between; */
background-color: green;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
position: relative;
min-width: 99%;
min-height: 99%;
padding: 1em;
display: table-row;
width: 700px;
}
/* Removed absolute positioning in favor of flexbox and a percentage */
/* width. .aside will start dis-proportionally expanding while the viewport */
/* expands. The two columns on the right while begin to shrink in response */
/* to.aside's expansion. All this stretching and shrinking happens when the */
/* elements are at 210px or more (210 is 30% of 700px). This behavior is */
/* accomplished by using flex-shrink, flex-grow, and flex-basis */
.aside {
display: table-cell;
background-color: red;
position: absolute;
top: 1em;
right: 0;
left: 70%;
/* order: 3; */
min-width: 30%;
max-width: 500px;
min-height: 100%;
/* flex-grow: 1;
flex-basis: 210px;*/
outline: 2px solid #7c1b38;
padding: 5px;
}
.aside-on-small-screen {
background-color: red;
}
.stuff {
outline: 2px dotted white;
width: 30%;
max-width: 210px;
min-height: 100%;
position: absolute;
/* flex-shrink: 1;
flex-basis: 210px; */
display: table-cell;
}
#col1 {
left: 1em;
top: 1em;
}
#col2 {
left: 36%;
top: 1em;
}
/*.stuff:first-of-type {
order: 1;
}
.stuff:last-of-type {
order: 2; */
}
/* The HTML shows that the second column (the second .stuff) would be */
/* in-between .aside and the edge of .colMain. Instead of moving it out of */
/* the way in markup (HTML), I used the flexbox property, order. */
<main>
<div class="colMain">
<div id="col1" class="stuff">stuff</div>
<div class="aside">aside that must extend all the way to the right until it reaches the window limit</div>
<div id="col2" class="stuff">stuff</div>
</div>
</main>
There are three problems in one:
First problem.
How to transform a middle content
<div class="wrapper">
<div>stuff</div>
<div class="aside">Middle content</div>
<div>stuff</div>
</div>
in a right column that expends to the right without overflowing out of the window, when the rest of the past column "wrapper" must be a centered column of fixed width.
<div class="colLeft"></div>
<div class="wrapper" style="text-align:center; width:700px;">
<div>stuff</div>
<div>stuff</div>
</div>
<div class="aside">Middle content now to the right</div>
Absolute positioning doesn't help because without fixed sizes (% or px), it is out of the flow and the content of variable width won't adapt to the situation (and overflow).
This can be easily solved with display table.
Second problem.
Display table/table-cell leads to the second problem.
To make three "columns" with display:table-cell, order is really important. That means the "aside" div must be the last element of its column (the wrapper column in my first snippet) in order to make it an independent cell of a row put to the right. If you don't have to worry about this story of middle content and you just have to switch a content at the end of a div to the right or a content at the beginning to the left, it's already over.
You just have to style colLeft, wrapper and aside of my second snippet with display:table-cell and use another global wrapper with display:table and some other styles like table-layout:fixed and width:100% to do the trick. With a media queries for small screen, you just have to hide the colLeft with display:none.
But if you need that middle content to be a middle content nonetheless on small screens and a right column on large screens, it's a different case.
This can be solved with anonymous table objects and table-header/footer/row-group.
With table-header/footer/row-group, you can reorganize your rows so you can put the "aside" at the end to transform it in an independent cell on large screens and place it in the middle with table-row-group on small screens:
.header{
background-color:green;
display:table-header-group;
}
.footer{
background-color:green;
display:table-footer-group;
}
.aside{
background-color:red;
display:table-row-group;
}
<div class="header">stuff</div>
<div class="footer">stuff</div>
<div class="aside">Middle content</div>
Third problem.
The hardest problem is the centered "column" of fixed width. With table-xxx-group, it is forbidden to put a wrapper around the table-header-group and table-footer-group to set a width of 700px because table-group are row elements and the wrapper will automatically becoming a table object, excluding the "aside" that won't be able to insert itself in the middle with its table-row-group style on small screens.
Without putting a wrapper around the "stuff", you won't be able to control the width of the created anonymous cell on large screens because you can't style something anonymous. So it takes a width of 1/3 like each cell.
main{
display:table;
table-layout: fixed;
width:100%;
}
.colLeft{
background-color:yellow;
display:table-cell;
}
.header,.footer{
background-color:green;
/*no display style > it will create an anonymous cell
object around the header/footer elements*/
}
.aside{
background-color:red;
display:table-cell;
}
<main>
<div class="colLeft"></div>
<div class="header">stuff</div>
<div class="footer">stuff</div>
<div class="aside">Middle content now to the right</div>
</main>
The solution is to use table-column-group/table-column. You will be able to style your columns and set a width to the middle column even though it is determined anonymously.
The solution
Small screens
.rowTabled{
display:table;
table-layout: fixed;
width:100%;
}
.header{
background-color:green;
display:table-header-group;
}
.footer{
background-color:green;
display:table-footer-group;
}
.aside{
background-color:red;
display:table-row-group;
}
.colLeft, .colgroup{
display:none;
}
<main>
<div class="colgroup">
<div class="colCol left"></div>
<div class="colCol middle"></div>
<div class="colCol right"></div>
</div>
<div class="rowTabled">
<div class="colLeft"></div>
<div class="header">stuff</div>
<div class="footer">stuff</div>
<div class="aside">asideeeeeeeeeeeex eeeeee eeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeee</div>
</div>
</main>
Large screens
main{
display:table;
table-layout: fixed;
width:100%;
}
.colgroup{
display:table-column-group;
}
.colCol{
display:table-column;
}
.middle{
background-color:green;
width:100px;
}
.left,.right{
background-color:yellow;
}
.rowTabled{
display:table-row;
}
.colLeft{
display:table-cell;
}
.aside{
background-color:red;
display:table-cell;
}
<main>
<div class="colgroup">
<div class="colCol left"></div>
<div class="colCol middle"></div>
<div class="colCol right"></div>
</div>
<div class="rowTabled">
<div class="colLeft"></div>
<div class="header">stuff</div>
<div class="footer">stuff</div>
<div class="aside">asideeeeeeeeeeeex eeeeee eeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeee</div>
</div>
</main>
This question already has answers here:
How can I vertically align elements in a div?
(28 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
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.
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
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
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.
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
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
In my firefox and chrome work this:
CSS:
display: flex;
justify-content: center; // vertical align
align-items: center; // horizontal align
I found this site useful: http://www.vanseodesign.com/css/vertical-centering/
This worked for me:
HTML
<div id="parent">
<div id="child">Content here</div>
</div>
CSS
#parent {
padding: 5% 0;
}
#child {
padding: 10% 0;
}
#GáborNagy's comment on another post was the simplest solution I could find and worked like a charm for me, since he brought a jsfiddle I'm copying it here with a small addition:
CSS:
#wrapper {
display: table;
height: 150px;
width: 800px;
border: 1px solid red;
}
#cell {
display: table-cell;
vertical-align: middle;
}
HTML:
<div id="wrapper">
<div id="cell">
<div class="content">
Content goes here
</div>
</div>
</div>
If you wish to also align it horizontally you'd have to add another div "inner-cell" inside the "cell" div, and give it this style:
#inner-cell{
width: 250px;
display: block;
margin: 0 auto;
}
Vertically aligning has always been tricky.
Here I have covered up some method of vertically aligning a div.
http://jsfiddle.net/3puHE/
HTML:
<div style="display:flex;">
<div class="container table">
<div class="tableCell">
<div class="content"><em>Table</em> method</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="container flex">
<div class="content new"><em>Flex</em> method<br></div>
</div>
<div class="container relative">
<div class="content"><em>Position</em> method</div>
</div>
<div class="container margin">
<div class="content"><em>Margin</em> method</div>
</div>
</div>
CSS:
em{font-style: normal;font-weight: bold;}
.container {
width:200px;height:200px;background:#ccc;
margin: 5px; text-align: center;
}
.content{
width:100px; height: 100px;background:#37a;margin:auto;color: #fff;
}
.table{display: table;}
.table > div{display: table-cell;height: 100%;width: 100%;vertical-align: middle;}
.flex{display: flex;}
.relative{position: relative;}
.relative > div {position: absolute;top: 0;left: 0;right: 0;bottom: 0;}
.margin > div {position:relative; margin-top: 50%;top: -50px;}
http://jsfiddle.net/dvL512e7/
Unless the aligned div has fixed height, try using the following CSS to the aligned div:
{
margin: auto;
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 0;
bottom: 0;
right: 0;
display: table;
}
I needed to specify min-height
#login
display: flex
align-items: center
justify-content: center
min-height: 16em
if you are using fix height div than you can use padding-top according your design need.
or you can use top:50%. if we are using div than vertical align does not work so we use padding top or position according need.
simplest way to center your div element is to use this class with following properties.
.light {
margin: auto;
width: 50%;
border: 3px solid green;
padding: 10px;
}
Centering the child elements in a div. It works for all screen sizes
#parent {
background-color: red;
height: 160px;
display: flex;
/*vertical-align */
align-items: center;
/*horizontal align*/
justify-content: center;
}
#child {
background-color: orange;
height: 20px;
padding: 10px;
}
<div id="parent">
<div id="child">Content here</div>
</div>
I found a way that works great for me. The next script inserts an invisible image (same as bgcolor or a transparant gif) with height equal to half the size of the white-space on the screen. The effect is a perfect vertical-alignment.
Say you have a header div (height=100) and a footer div (height=50) and the content in the main div that you would like to align has a height of 300:
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">
var screen = window.innerHeight;
var content = 150 + 300;
var imgheight = ( screen - content) / 2 ;
document.write("<img src='empty.jpg' height='" + imgheight + "'>");
</script>
You place the script just before the content that you want to align!
In my case the content I liked to align was an image (width=95%) with an aspect ratio of 100:85 (width:height).Meaning the height of the image is 85% of it's width. And the Width being 95% of the screenwidth.
I therefore used:
var content = 150 + ( 0.85 * ( 0.95 * window.innerWidth ));
Combine this script with
<body onResize="window.location.href = window.location.href;">
and you have a smooth vertical alignment.
Hope this works for you too!
have you try this one?
.parentdiv {
margin: auto;
position: absolute;
top: 0; left: 0; bottom: 0; right: 0;
height: 300px; // at least you have to specify height
}
hope this helps
divs can't be vertically aligned that way, you can however use margins or position:relative to modify its location.
how could i vertically center a <div> within a <div> ?
my code so far:
<div style="height:322px;overflow:auto;">
<div style="border: Solid 1px #999999;padding:5px;">
</div>
</div>
i have tried "top:50%;" and "vertical-align:middle;" without success
EDIT: okay so it's been discussed a lot. and i've maybe started another mini flame war. but for argument sake, how would i do it with a table then? i've used css for everything else so far so it's not like i'm not trying to employ "good practices".
EDIT: the inner div does not have a fixed height
In short, you're stuffed. More on this in a recent question I asked Can you do this HTML layout without using tables? Basically the CSS fanatics need to get a grip and realize there's simply some things you can't do (or can't do well) without tables.
This anti-table hysteria is nothing short of ridiculous.
Table cells handle vertical centering really well and are backwards compatible as far as you could possibly care about. They also handle side-by-side content way better than floats, relative/absolute positioning or any of the other CSS type methods.
Joel coined (or at least popularized) the term "architect astronauts" in Don't Let Architecture Astronauts Scare You. Well, in that same vein I think the term "CSS Astronaut" (or "CSS Space Cadet") is equally appropriate.
CSS is an incredibly useful tool but it also has some pretty serious limitations. My favourite ishow numbered lists may only appear as "3." but not "3)" or "(3)" (at least prior to CSS3 generated content--or is it CSS2.1? Either way it's not widely supported). What an oversight.
But bigger than that is vertical centering and side-by-side layout. These two areas are still a huge problem for pure CSS. Another poster decided the relative positioning combined with negative margin heights was the way to go. How is that any better than:
<html>
<head>
<title>Layout</title>
<style type="text/css">
#outer { height: 200px; border: 1px solid black; width: 600px; background-color: #DDD; }
#inner { width: 150px; border: 1px solid red; background: yellow; margin: auto; line-height: 100%; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<table>
<tr>
<td id="outer">
<div id="inner">Inner</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
which will work everywhere, everytime.
Here is an article on vertical centering in CSS. To achieve a similar thing they use three nested divs with relative+absolute+relative positioning just to get vertical centering. I'm sorry but whoever wrote that--and anyone who thinks that's a good diea--has simply lost the plot.
A counterargument is given in Tables vs CSS: CSS Trolls begone. The proof really is in the pudding. The vast majority of the top 20 (Alexa) sites still use tables for layout. With good reason.
So decide for yourself: do you want your site to work and spend less time getting it to work? Or do you want to be a CSS Astronaut?
It's non-trivial, there can be caveats, and it's not something CSS handles well at this point.
It is however quite widely discussed and googleable. This is a good example.
Whatever you do, please don't fallback to tables.
Edit: this is ridiculous, the following works perfectly well in a strict doc without resorting to table markup:
<style type="text/css">
.outer {height: 322px; overflow: hidden; position: relative;}
*|html .outer {display: table; position: static;}
.middle {position: absolute; top: 50%;}
*|html .middle {display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle; position: static;}
.inner {position: relative; top: -50%; overflow: auto;}
*|html .inner {position: static; max-height: 322px;}
</style>
<!--[if IE]>
<style>
.inner {height: expression(Math.min(this.scrollHeight,322)+'px'); width: 100%;} /* for explorer only */
</style>
<![endif]-->
<div class="outer">
<div class="middle">
<div class="inner">
Any text any height
</div>
</div>
</div>
I like this solution best. It is for IE8+, and is easy to understand.
<style>
/* Can be any width and height */
.block {
height:500px;
text-align: center;
}
/* The ghost, nudged to maintain perfect centering */
.block:before {
content: '';
display: inline-block;
height: 100%;
vertical-align: middle;
margin-right: -0.25em; /* Adjusts for spacing */
}
/* The element to be centered, can be any width or height */
.centered {
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: middle;
width: 300px;
}
</style>
<div class="block"><div class="centered">Centered Content</div></div>
top: 50%; should work. you need to put margin-top to negative half of the height or it will start in the middle. Therefore, you need the height of the inner div. You also probably need position:relative;
Something like this for you inner div.
position:relative;
top: 50%;
height:80px;
margin-top: -40px; /*set to a negative number 1/2 of your height*/
Not very neat working with negative sizes (what does it even mean?) but maybe the easiest way.
<div style="display: table; height: 400px; #position: relative; overflow: hidden;">
<div style=" #position: absolute; #top: 50%;display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;">
<div style=" #position: relative; #top: -50%">
vertically centered
</div>
</div>
</div>
more information
Two techniques of many
Browser compatibility of the following has been tested in IE only. Modern browsers should handle these no problem.
#1 - Absolute and auto margin
Compatibility: IE 8 +
The combination of top, right, bottom, left and margin: auto centers the div vertically and horizontally.
The width and height are needed, but can be percentages
Can also be applied to an inner div with the parent set position: relative
Note: A max-width and max-height instead of a percentage height is possible IE 9 +. IE 8 requires a height.
html,
body {
height: 100%;
}
.outer {
background: #ff8f00;
height: 50%;
width: 50%;
margin: auto;
position: absolute;
top: 0;
right: 0;
bottom: 0;
left: 0;
}
<div class="outer"></div>
#2 - Flexbox
Compatibility: IE 11. See here for other browser support.
Using Flexbox and flexible vw and vh lengths
body {
margin: 0;
}
.outer {
display: flex;
align-items: center;
justify-content: center;
height: 100vh;
}
.inner {
width: 50vw;
height: 50vh;
background: #ff8f00;
}
<div class="outer">
<div class="inner">
</div>
</div>
Do you absolutely need to do this with css? The above link looks pretty good, but you could get a result using javasctipt/jquery - determine the height of the innter div and adjust the margin.padding accordingly. Something similar to: (jquery)
var gap = ( $('the-outer-div').height() - $('the-inner-div').height() ) /2;
$('the-inner-div').css( "margin-top" , gap );
A table isn't necessary if you're willing to use the flexbox display model.
E.g.
<div style="height: 322px; width: 200px; display: flex; background: gray;">
<div style="border: Solid 1px #999999; padding:5px; margin: auto;">
This text would be both vertically AND horizontally centered, if it's inner height and width were less than the parent's height and width.
</div>
</div>
If you just want vertical centering use the rule "margin: auto 0;" in the child div.
p.s. You'll have to prefix your use of flexbox if you want cross-browser compatibility (e.g. "display: -webkit-flexbox;")
The display: flex property works especially well for centering, both vertically and horizontally. For vertical centering, add the properties display: flex and justify-content: center to the container.
Try line-height