CSS How to Position an Element in a Middle (Half Height/Vertical 50%) of Another Element

CSS how to position an element in a middle (half height / vertical 50%) of another element

This is pretty late but I tried to make an example on codepen which shows a working example if I understood your question correctly.

http://codepen.io/trgraglia/pen/RWbKyj

Use CSS transform.

For example, transform:translateX(-50%);, will move an element left by 50% of ITSELF. Now you can align it to the parent with position and bottom or top or left or right and then move it by the dimensions of itself.

Hope this helps!

Positioning div element at center of screen

The easy way, if you have a fixed width and height:

#divElement{
    position: absolute;
    top: 50%;
    left: 50%;
    margin-top: -50px;
    margin-left: -50px;
    width: 100px;
    height: 100px;
}​

Please don't use inline styles! Here is a working example http://jsfiddle.net/S5bKq/.

Positioning a div relative to its vertical centre

In the snippet bellow I have two elements, both set to position:absolute with top: 25% and left: 50% .

• .element as transform: translate(-50%, -50%); that allows him to center vertically and horizontally "exactly" at 25% of the page dimensions (height, width). Because unlike top and left, the transform property is based on the size of the target element. So the percentage you set refers to the size of the bounding box of the target.
• .other in the other hand doesn't have a transform rule so it's not positioned like you wanted it to be, its top border sits at 25%

.element,.other {  position: absolute;  text-align: center;  top: 25%;  left: 50%;}
.element {  transform: translate(-50%, -50%);  color: green;}
.other {  color: red;}html,body{  height:100%;  margin:0;  padding:0;}

<div class="element">I'm at 25% middle</div><div class="other">I'm not at 25% middle</div>

Vertically centering a div inside another div

tl;dr

Vertical align middle works, but you will have to use table-cell on your parent element and inline-block on the child.

This solution is not going to work in IE6 & 7.
Yours is the safer way to go for those.
But since you tagged your question with CSS3 and HTML5 I was thinking that you don't mind using a modern solution.

The classic solution (table layout)

This was my original answer. It still works fine and is the solution with the widest support. Table-layout will impact your rendering performance so I would suggest that you use one of the more modern solutions.

Here is an example

---

Tested in:

• FF3.5+
• FF4+
• Safari 5+
• Chrome 11+
• IE9+

---

HTML

<div class="cn"><div class="inner">your content</div></div>

CSS

.cn {
  display: table-cell;
  width: 500px;
  height: 500px;
  vertical-align: middle;
  text-align: center;
}

.inner {
  display: inline-block;
  width: 200px; height: 200px;
}

---

Modern solution (transform)

Since transforms are fairly well supported now there is an easier way to do it.

CSS

.cn {
  position: relative;
  width: 500px;
  height: 500px;
}

.inner {
  position: absolute;
  top: 50%; left: 50%;
  transform: translate(-50%,-50%);
  width: 200px;
  height: 200px;
}

Demo

---

♥ my favourite modern solution (flexbox)

I started to use flexbox more and more its also well supported now Its by far the easiest way.

CSS

.cn {
  display: flex;
  justify-content: center;
  align-items: center; 
}

Demo

More examples & possibilities:
Compare all the methods on one pages

How to center an element horizontally and vertically

• Approach 1 - transform translateX/translateY:

Example Here / Full Screen Example

In supported browsers (most of them), you can use top: 50%/left: 50% in combination with translateX(-50%) translateY(-50%) to dynamically vertically/horizontally center the element.

.container {
    position: absolute;
    top: 50%;
    left: 50%;
    -moz-transform: translateX(-50%) translateY(-50%);
    -webkit-transform: translateX(-50%) translateY(-50%);
    transform: translateX(-50%) translateY(-50%);
}

<div class="container">
    <span>I'm vertically/horizontally centered!</span>
</div>

How to vertically center content with variable height within a div?

Just add

position: relative;
top: 50%;
transform: translateY(-50%);

to the inner div.

What it does is moving the inner div's top border to the half height of the outer div (top: 50%;) and then the inner div up by half its height (transform: translateY(-50%)). This will work with position: absolute or relative.

Keep in mind that transform and translate have vendor prefixes which are not included for simplicity.

Codepen: http://codepen.io/anon/pen/ZYprdb

How to align a div to the middle (horizontally/width) of the page

<body>
    <div style="width:800px; margin:0 auto;">
        centered content
    </div>
</body>

How can I center text (horizontally and vertically) inside a div block?

If it is one line of text and/or image, then it is easy to do. Just use:

text-align: center;
vertical-align: middle;
line-height: 90px;       /* The same as your div height */

That's it. If it can be multiple lines, then it is somewhat more complicated. But there are solutions on http://pmob.co.uk/. Look for "vertical align".

Since they tend to be hacks or adding complicated divs... I usually use a table with a single cell to do it... to make it as simple as possible.

---

Update for 2020:

Unless you need make it work on earlier browsers such as Internet Explorer 10, you can use flexbox. It is widely supported by all current major browsers. Basically, the container needs to be specified as a flex container, together with centering along its main and cross axis:

#container {
  display: flex;
  justify-content: center;
  align-items: center;
}

To specify a fixed width for the child, which is called a "flex item":

#content {
  flex: 0 0 120px;
}

Example: http://jsfiddle.net/2woqsef1/1/

To shrink-wrap the content, it is even simpler: just remove the flex: ... line from the flex item, and it is automatically shrink-wrapped.

Example: http://jsfiddle.net/2woqsef1/2/

The examples above have been tested on major browsers including MS Edge and Internet Explorer 11.

One technical note if you need to customize it: inside of the flex item, since this flex item is not a flex container itself, the old non-flexbox way of CSS works as expected. However, if you add an additional flex item to the current flex container, the two flex items will be horizontally placed. To make them vertically placed, add the flex-direction: column; to the flex container. This is how it works between a flex container and its immediate child elements.

There is an alternative method of doing the centering: by not specifying center for the distribution on the main and cross axis for the flex container, but instead specify margin: auto on the flex item to take up all extra space in all four directions, and the evenly distributed margins will make the flex item centered in all directions. This works except when there are multiple flex items. Also, this technique works on MS Edge but not on Internet Explorer 11.

---

Update for 2016 / 2017:

It can be more commonly done with transform, and it works well even in older browsers such as Internet Explorer 10 and Internet Explorer 11. It can support multiple lines of text:

position: relative;
top: 50%;
transform: translateY(-50%);

Example: https://jsfiddle.net/wb8u02kL/1/

To shrink-wrap the width:

The solution above used a fixed width for the content area. To use a shrink-wrapped width, use

position: relative;
float: left;
top: 50%;
left: 50%;
transform: translate(-50%, -50%);

Example: https://jsfiddle.net/wb8u02kL/2/

If the support for Internet Explorer 10 is needed, then flexbox won't work and the method above and the line-height method would work. Otherwise, flexbox would do the job.

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