Can't center div in another div - html

Question

I'm trying to make a menu bar centered horizontally in the header of my page. For some reason, i can't get the centering to work. I made a little test page roughly displaying the problem: JSFiddle. The inner div has to be 5px away from the bottom, that's whatI use the position: absolute for.
I've tried searching on the web alot, but everything I find gives me the same result, or none at all. Most problems I found were when text-align: center wasn't in the container div, but even with it, it still doesn't work.

Answer 1

I removed two css attributes and it work.
position: absolute;
bottom: 5px;
Check this Fiddle
5px from bottom. Fiddle

Answer 2

This is not a perfect way, but it's still kind of useful. I first think of this idea from this Q&A.
You'll have to make some change to your HTML:
<div id="container">
<div id="wrapper-center"> <!-- added a new DIV layer -->
<div id="inner_container">
TEXT ELEMETNES IN THIS THING!!!!
</div>
</div>
</div>
And the CSS will change to:
#container {
background: black;
width: 100%;
height: 160px;
position: relative;
}
#inner_container {
display: inline-block;
width: auto;
color: white;
background-color: #808080;
padding: 5px;
position: relative;
left:-50%;
}
#wrapper-center {
position:absolute;
left:50%;
bottom:5px;
width:auto;
}
Demo fiddle
The trick is to place the wrapper at the given top-bottom position, and 50% from left (related to parent), and then make the true content 50% to left (related to the wrapper), thus making it center.
But the pitfall is, the wrapper will only be half the parent container's width, and thus the content: in case of narrow screen or long content, it will wrap before it "stretch width enough".

Answer 3

If you want to centre something, you typically provide a width and then make the margins either side half of the total space remaining. So if your inner div is 70% of your outer div you set left and right margins to 15% each. Note that margin:auto will do this for you automatically. Your text will still appear to one side though as it is left-aligned. Fix this with text-align: centre.
PS: you really don't need to use position absolute to centre something like this, in fact it just makes things more difficult and less flexible.
* {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
#container {
background: black;
width: 100%;
height: 160px;
}
#inner_container {
color:red;
height:50px;
width: 70%;
margin:auto;
text-align:center;
}

Answer 4

If you don't want a fixed width on the inner div, you could do something like this
#outer {
width: 100%;
text-align: center;
}
#inner {
display: inline-block;
}
That makes the inner div to an inline element, that can be centered with text-align.
working Ex

Answer 5

this CSS changes will work :
#container {
background: black;
width: 100%;
height: 160px;
line-height: 160px;
text-align: center;
}
#inner_container {
display: inline;
margin: 0 auto;
width: auto;
color: white;
background-color: #808080;
padding: 5px;
bottom: 5px;
}

Answer 6

Try this:
html
<div id="outer"><div id="inner">inner</div></div>
css
#outer {
background: black;
width: 100%;
height: 160px;
line-height: 160px;
text-align: center;
}
#inner{
display: inline;
width: auto;
color: white;
background-color: #808080;
padding: 5px;
bottom: 5px;
}
example jsfiddle

Answer 7

You may set the inline style for the inner div.
HTML:
<div id="container">
<div align="center" id="inner_container" style="text-align: center; position:absolute;color: white;width:100%; bottom:5px;">
<div style="display: inline-block;text-align: center;">TEXT ELEMETNES IN THIS THING!!!!</div>
</div>
</div>
Here is working DEMO