Move a div up in its container [duplicate] - html

Question

This question already has answers here:
Align inline-block DIVs to top of container element
(5 answers)
How to remove the space between inline/inline-block elements?
(41 answers)
Closed 4 years ago.
When a div is next to another larger one in the same container, the smaller one stays at the bottom. I would like it to start from the top, any idea how to do that?
See the example below. I would like the red box to come all the way up, of course without using something like position-relative then just moving it up in px or em
Bonus points if someone can explain where the spacing between my boxes come from since I did not specify any padding or margin ;)
.container {
background-color: blue;
width: 700px;
height: auto;
}
.small {
width: 200px;
height: 200px;
display: inline-block;
background-color: red;
}
.big {
height: 400px;
width: 400px;
display: inline-block;
background-color: green;
}
<div class=container>
<div class=small></div>
<div class=big></div>
</div>

Answer 1

vertical-align works on elements that are display: inline-block; - so simply add vertical-align: top;
As for the spaces, that's the "whitespace" between your elements, which exists because the divs are on separate lines. There's a handful of solutions to this, one of which is simply keep the closing </div> and opening <div> immediately adjacent (like so: </div><div>), which I have implemented in the snippet below.
.container {
background-color: blue;
width: 700px;
height: auto;
}
.small {
width: 200px;
height: 200px;
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: top;
background-color: red;
}
.big {
height: 400px;
width: 400px;
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: top;
background-color: green;
}
<div class=container>
<div class=small></div><div class=big></div>
</div>

Answer 2

The best solution to problems of container and child item layout is CSS Flexbox. Note that I added display: flex and align-items: flex-start to your container. That second one has the magic which aligns all child items to the top. Follow the link above for a very helpful reference. Also note that your spacing issue is fixed.
.container {
background-color:blue;
width: 700px;
height: auto;
display: flex;
align-items: flex-start;
}
.small {
width:200px;
height:200px;
display:inline-block;
background-color:red;
}
.big {
height: 400px;
width:400px;
display:inline-block;
background-color:green;
}
<div class=container>
<div class=small></div>
<div class=big></div>
</div>

Answer 3

There may be a better solution out there, but if you float each element left it will give you your desired output.
.container {
background-color: blue;
width: 700px;
height: auto;
}
.small {
width: 200px;
height: 200px;
display: inline-block;
background-color: red;
}
.big {
height: 400px;
width: 400px;
display: inline-block;
background-color: green;
}
.left{
float: left
}
<div class="container left">
<div class="small left"></div>
<div class="big left"></div>
</div>

Answer 4

Just add vertical-align: top; to both elements.
Also the space is added because both elements are inline-block and are considered as text elements, you can fix that by setting font-size to 0 to the parent element, like that:
.container{
font-size: 0;
}
And don't forget to set the right font size to the child elements if you're going to add some text to them, example :
.small, .big{
font-size: 16px;
}