I simply can't figure this out: I have a div that is centered on screen with a width of 60%. Inside this div I have 3 more divs that float left with the width of 33% and have a gray bg color. The divs are filled with text and one image per div. Each div should now take 1/3 space inside the "maindiv". This works fine but as soon as I give my 3 "contentdivs" a padding so the text gets seperated a bit the third div wanders below the others. I also want a margin around my 3 divs so there is a gap between all the divs. But this only works if I give the divs a width of like 31%. As soon as I shrink my browser though, the third one pops up below the others again.
How it looks now:
How it looks with a width of 33.33%
How can fix this? I mean I set the divs to a relative width by setting the size in %. So the divs should just shrink as soon as I shrink my browser window. I tried to surround all the divs by other divs and messed around with margins and paddings but it just won't work.
Most likely it’s box model’s fault. Paddings, margins and borders can be added together in different ways. Add box-sizing:border-box to the container and its elements. Most certainly this brings about what you intended to do, and width:33.3333% wil work out as expected.
Adding margin still breaks the item? There’s another great thing called calc(). Assumed you have a margin of 8px, that’s just a few pixels too much. With calc(), you can subtract the additional margin like this:
.item{ width:calc(33.3333vw - 8px); }
Note that there must be whitespace around the minus. Try it and include your margin.
Apply box-sizing: border-box to all related elements (or the entire document, as Bootstrap does). http://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/box-sizing
Then, rather than margin, use padding for the outer spacing. This eliminates the need to do mental math altogether.
div {
box-sizing: border-box;
}
.one-third, .inner, .full-width {
padding: 8px;
}
.one-third {
float: left;
width: 33.333%;
}
.inner {
background-color: pink;
}
<div class="full-width">
<div class="inner">Full-width div</div>
</div>
<div class="one-third">
<div class="inner">Content</div>
</div>
<div class="one-third">
<div class="inner">Content</div>
</div>
<div class="one-third">
<div class="inner">Content</div>
</div>
Fiddle demo
Your best bet would be to get the three columns and margins to equal 100%. This is fairly easy if you know you are only having three columns:
.item {
width:32%;
margin-left:2%;
}
.item:first-child {
margin-left:0;
}
As long as there is only three it will always add up to 100% as you are overriding the first .item. If you don't override the first item then you will have a space before your columns and the last column won't fit. Mixing pixels and percentages will give you issues in a grid (unless they're paddings and you are using box-sizing). Margin is not included in the box-sizing as it is not part of the main box model.
I would like to ask how height and float work. I have an outer div and an inner div that has content in it. Its height may vary depending on the content of the inner div but it seems that my inner div will overflow its outside div. What would be the proper way to do it?
<html>
<body>
<div style="margin:0 auto;width: 960px; min-height: 100px; background-color:orange">
<div style="width:500px; height:200px; background-color:black; float:right"></div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
The floated elements do not add to the height of the container element, and hence if you don't clear them, container height won't increase...
I'll show you visually:
More Explanation:
<div>
<div style="float: left;"></div>
<div style="width: 15px;"></div> <!-- This will shift
besides the top div. Why? Because of the top div
is floated left, making the
rest of the space blank -->
<div style="clear: both;"></div>
<!-- Now in order to prevent the next div from floating beside the top ones,
we use `clear: both;`. This is like a wall, so now none of the div's
will be floated after this point. The container height will now also include the
height of these floated divs -->
<div></div>
</div>
You can also add overflow: hidden; on container elements, but I would suggest you use clear: both; instead.
Also if you might like to self-clear an element you can use
.self_clear:after {
content: "";
clear: both;
display: table;
}
How Does CSS Float Work?
What is float exactly and what does it do?
The float property is misunderstood by most beginners. Well, what exactly does float do? Initially, the float property was introduced to flow text around images, which are floated left or right. Here's another explanation by #Madara Uchicha. So, is it wrong to use the float property for placing boxes side by side? The answer is no; there is no problem if you use the float property in order to set boxes side by side.
Floating an inline or block level element will make the element behave like an inline-block element.Demo
If you float an element left or right, the width of the element will be limited to the content it holds, unless width is defined explicitly ...
You cannot float an element center. This is the biggest issue I've always seen with beginners, using float: center;, which is not a valid value for the float property. float is generally used to float/move content to the very left or to the very right. There are only four valid values for float property i.e left, right, none (default) and inherit.
Parent element collapses, when it contains floated child elements, in order to prevent this, we use clear: both; property, to clear the floated elements on both the sides, which will prevent the collapsing of the parent element. For more information, you can refer my another answer here.
(Important) Think of it where we have a stack of various elements. When we use float: left; or float: right; the element moves above the stack by one. Hence the elements in the normal document flow will hide behind the floated elements because it is on stack level above the normal floated elements. (Please don't relate this to z-index as that is completely different.)
Taking a case as an example to explain how CSS floats work, assuming we need a simple 2 column layout with a header, footer, and 2 columns, so here is what the blueprint looks like...
In the above example, we will be floating only the red boxes, either you can float both to the left, or you can float on to left, and another to right as well, depends on the layout, if it's 3 columns, you may float 2 columns to left where another one to the right so depends, though in this example, we have a simplified 2 column layout so will float one to left and the other to the right.
Markup and styles for creating the layout explained further down...
<div class="main_wrap">
<header>Header</header>
<div class="wrapper clear">
<div class="floated_left">
This<br />
is<br />
just<br />
a<br />
left<br />
floated<br />
column<br />
</div>
<div class="floated_right">
This<br />
is<br />
just<br />
a<br />
right<br />
floated<br />
column<br />
</div>
</div>
<footer>Footer</footer>
</div>
* {
-moz-box-sizing: border-box; /* Just for demo purpose */
-webkkit-box-sizing: border-box; /* Just for demo purpose */
box-sizing: border-box; /* Just for demo purpose */
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
.main_wrap {
margin: 20px;
border: 3px solid black;
width: 520px;
}
header, footer {
height: 50px;
border: 3px solid silver;
text-align: center;
line-height: 50px;
}
.wrapper {
border: 3px solid green;
}
.floated_left {
float: left;
width: 200px;
border: 3px solid red;
}
.floated_right {
float: right;
width: 300px;
border: 3px solid red;
}
.clear:after {
clear: both;
content: "";
display: table;
}
Let's go step by step with the layout and see how float works..
First of all, we use the main wrapper element, you can just assume that it's your viewport, then we use header and assign a height of 50px so nothing fancy there. It's just a normal non floated block level element which will take up 100% horizontal space unless it's floated or we assign inline-block to it.
The first valid value for float is left so in our example, we use float: left; for .floated_left, so we intend to float a block to the left of our container element.
Column floated to the left
And yes, if you see, the parent element, which is .wrapper is collapsed, the one you see with a green border didn't expand, but it should right? Will come back to that in a while, for now, we have got a column floated to left.
Coming to the second column, lets it float this one to the right
Another column floated to the right
Here, we have a 300px wide column which we float to the right, which will sit beside the first column as it's floated to the left, and since it's floated to the left, it created empty gutter to the right, and since there was ample of space on the right, our right floated element sat perfectly beside the left one.
Still, the parent element is collapsed, well, let's fix that now. There are many ways to prevent the parent element from getting collapsed.
Add an empty block level element and use clear: both; before the parent element ends, which holds floated elements, now this one is a cheap solution to clear your floating elements which will do the job for you but, I would recommend not to use this.
Add, <div style="clear: both;"></div> before the .wrapper div ends, like
<div class="wrapper clear">
<!-- Floated columns -->
<div style="clear: both;"></div>
</div>
Demo
Well, that fixes very well, no collapsed parent anymore, but it adds unnecessary markup to the DOM, so some suggest, to use overflow: hidden; on the parent element holding floated child elements which work as intended.
Use overflow: hidden; on .wrapper
.wrapper {
border: 3px solid green;
overflow: hidden;
}
Demo
That saves us an element every time we need to clear float but as I tested various cases with this, it failed in one particular one, which uses box-shadow on the child elements.
Demo (Can't see the shadow on all 4 sides, overflow: hidden; causes this issue)
So what now? Save an element, no overflow: hidden; so go for a clear fix hack, use the below snippet in your CSS, and just as you use overflow: hidden; for the parent element, call the class below on the parent element to self-clear.
.clear:after {
clear: both;
content: "";
display: table;
}
<div class="wrapper clear">
<!-- Floated Elements -->
</div>
Demo
Here, shadow works as intended, also, it self-clears the parent element which prevents to collapse.
And lastly, we use footer after we clear the floated elements.
Demo
When is float: none; used anyways, as it is the default, so any use to declare float: none;?
Well, it depends, if you are going for a responsive design, you will use this value a lot of times, when you want your floated elements to render one below another at a certain resolution. For that float: none; property plays an important role there.
Few real-world examples of how float is useful.
The first example we already saw is to create one or more than one column layouts.
Using img floated inside p which will enable our content to flow around.
Demo (Without floating img)
Demo 2 (img floated to the left)
Using float for creating horizontal menu - Demo
Float second element as well, or use `margin`
Last but not the least, I want to explain this particular case where you float only single element to the left but you do not float the other, so what happens?
Suppose if we remove float: right; from our .floated_right class, the div will be rendered from extreme left as it isn't floated.
Demo
So in this case, either you can float the to the left as well
OR
You can use margin-left which will be equal to the size of the left floated column i.e 200px wide.
You need to add overflow:auto to your parent div for it to encompass the inner floated div:
<div style="margin:0 auto;width: 960px; min-height: 100px; background-color:orange;overflow:auto">
<div style="width:500px; height:200px; background-color:black; float:right">
</div>
</div>
jsFiddle example
You are encountering the float bug (though I'm not sure if it's technically a bug due to how many browsers exhibit this behaviour). Here is what is happening:
Under normal circumstances, assuming that no explicit height has been set, a block level element such as a div will set its height based on its content. The bottom of the parent div will extend beyond the last element. Unfortunately, floating an element stops the parent from taking the floated element into account when determining its height. This means that if your last element is floated, it will not "stretch" the parent in the same way a normal element would.
Clearing
There are two common ways to fix this. The first is to add a "clearing" element; that is, another element below the floated one that will force the parent to stretch. So add the following html as the last child:
<div style="clear:both"></div>
It shouldn't be visible, and by using clear:both, you make sure that it won't sit next to the floated element, but after it.
Overflow:
The second method, which is preferred by most people (I think) is to change the CSS of the parent element so that the overflow is anything but "visible". So setting the overflow to "hidden" will force the parent to stretch beyond the bottom of the floated child. This is only true if you haven't set a height on the parent, of course.
Like I said, the second method is preferred as it doesn't require you to go and add semantically meaningless elements to your markup, but there are times when you need the overflow to be visible, in which case adding a clearing element is more than acceptable.
Its because of the float of the div. Add overflow: hidden on the outside element.
<div style="overflow:hidden; margin:0 auto;width: 960px; min-height: 100px; background-color:orange;">
<div style="width:500px; height:200px; background-color:black; float:right">
</div>
</div>
Demo
You confuse how browsers renders the elements when there are floating elements. If one block element is floating (your inner div in your case), other block elements will ignore it because browser removes floating elements from the normal flow of the web page. Then, because the floated div has been removed from the normal flow, the outside div is filled in, like the inner div isn't there. However, inline elements (images, links, text, blackquotes) will respect the boundaries of the floating element. If you introduce text in the outside div, the text will place arround de inner div.
In other words, block elements (headers, paragraphs, divs, etc) ignore floating elements and fill in, and inline elements (images, links, text, etc) respect boundaries of floating elements.
An fiddle example here
<body>
<div style="float:right; background-color:blue;width:200px;min-height:400px;margin-right:20px">
floating element
</div>
<h1 style="background-color:red;"> this is a big header</h1>
<p style="background-color:green"> this is a parragraph with text and a big image. The text places arrounds the floating element. Because of the image is wider than space between paragrah and floating element places down the floating element. Try to make wider the viewport and see what happens :D
<img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nKxzQGcCLtQ/TBYPAJ6xM4I/AAAAAAAAAC8/lG6XemOXosU/s1600/css.png">
</p>
Try this one
.parent_div{
display: flex;
}
you can use overflow property to the container div if you don't have any div to show over the container eg:
<div class="cointainer">
<div class="one">Content One</div>
<div class="two">Content Two</div>
</div>
Here is the following css:
.container{
width:100%;/* As per your requirment */
height:auto;
float:left;
overflow:hidden;
}
.one{
width:200px;/* As per your requirment */
height:auto;
float:left;
}
.two{
width:200px;/* As per your requirment */
height:auto;
float:left;
}
-----------------------OR------------------------------
<div class="cointainer">
<div class="one">Content One</div>
<div class="two">Content Two</div>
<div class="clearfix"></div>
</div>
Here is the following css:
.container{
width:100%;/* As per your requirment */
height:auto;
float:left;
overflow:hidden;
}
.one{
width:200px;/* As per your requirment */
height:auto;
float:left;
}
.two{
width:200px;/* As per your requirment */
height:auto;
float:left;
}
.clearfix:before,
.clearfix:after{
display: table;
content: " ";
}
.clearfix:after{
clear: both;
}
I have the following situation:
A variable height div (#container) with an image on the inside (image that is placed within another div) that I need to float:right and align vertically in the middle. How to do this?
Thanks.
EDIT:
Maybe I didn't make it clear enough that i do not know beforehand how much content the container has, from a few lines to a wall of text, so any solution relying on its height won't work (and that's my problem :P)
This is a fiddle with an example of possible content to which align the image: http://jsfiddle.net/9DbmN/
You should take a look at Centering in the Unknown by Chris Coyier. Imo it´s a pretty solid solution to the holy grail of vertical centering.
I would not discourage using tables here))) If you use a two-cell table with vertical-align: middle set on its td elements - it will perfectly (and easily!!!) solve your problem.
If you want to have two containers, one of which (the one with the image) will be floated to the right and needed centering - I'd say you'll have to avoid using float property for this. Because a) as far as I understand you don't need you content on the left to be UNDER the image, right? b) floats are block-level elements and you can't change it even if you set display: table-cell, the browser will still render it as display: block - which leads me to the conclusion that you won't manage to center it by css (at least by the means I'm aware of).
If you don't need ie7 support a possible workaround might be this:
html:
<div id="container">
<div class="content">Content goes here, vertically aligned with the image</div>
<div class="i_used_to_be_floated_right">Image goes here</div>
</div>
css:
#container {
display: table;
width: 100%;
}
.content, .i_used_to_be_floated_right {
display: table-cell;
vertical-align: middle;
}
.content {
background: green;
width: 80%;
}
.i_used_to_be_floated_right{
background: red;
width: 20%;
}
The working example live can be seen here: http://jsfiddle.net/skip405/sDXMj/1/
But if you need ie7 - I would vote for the table-solution I stated at the very beginning.
I'm trying to put div elements right next to each other. The problem is, even if there is enough room for the two elements to be on the same line, the new div moves itself to the next line, I need the other div only to go to the next line if there isn't enough room.
Does anybody know how to do this?
Set the CSS display style to display:inline-block;.
This allows the element to keep it's block-like functionality, while also allowing it to be displayed inline. It's a half-way house between the two.
(But note that there are some compatibility issues with older versions of IE)
Divs are block level elements, so by default they will always occupy an entire line. The way to change this is to float the divs:
<div style="float: left"></div>
Use float's and margin's; that way when there's no space you can just put overflow:hidden to the container hide the rest of the div instead of making it go to the next line.
CSS
.container {
width:500px;
background:#DADADA;
overflow:hidden; /* also used as a clearfix */
}
.content {
float:left;
background:green;
width:350px;
}
.sidebar {
width:155px; /* Intentionaly has more width */
margin-left:350px; /* Width of the content */
background:lime;
}
HTML
<div class="container">
<div class="content">Content</div>
<div class="sidebar">Sidebar</div>
</div>
In this demo you can see: floats, margin+floats, display:inline-block.
Demo here: http://jsfiddle.net/kuroir/UupbG/1/
You need to use float CSS rule. Just use some class or identifier and set float to left or right.
Make sure that you have a fixed width to the divs
i have two divs, that float correctly in chrome, ff and safari but not iexplorer, the right div appears below the left div floated to the right- the two divs are wrapped by an outer div with a width of 800px;
<div class="b_left">
</div>
<div class="b_right">
</div>
.b_left{
width:350px;
margin-left:80px;
float:left;
display: block;
}
.b_right{
float:right;
width:350px;
height:280px;
background-color:#c8c8c8;
display: block;
}
when using divs for columns, which I assume is what you are intending for this, it is better to only float one of the divs.
Say i have a div called content which is 600px wide and inside it two 300px divs inside, leftblock and rightblock. Instead of floating leftblock left and rightblock right I instead float the leftblock left and put a 300px margin-left on the rightblock. This pushes the rightblock to the right and ensures room for the leftblock to fit in beside it while preventing IE from displaying weirdly.
Hope this helps
it is a bug of ie, it doubles the margins. you must add display inline to the .b_left.
display: inline
I created a quick jsFiddle here: http://jsfiddle.net/6JWq9/
And it shows up just fine. I suspect you have other code that adds padding or a margin.
Review my example, let me know what is different from yours and I can update my answer.
Just put margin: 0; padding: 0; on all three divs and go from there to check. Also reset styles are a MUST for IE, I use Eric Meyer's. (easy to Google).
Also, display: inline; on the one with margin will fix it for IE6 I suspect.