Vertical Align with Absolute Positioning

How to center div vertically inside of absolutely positioned parent div

First of all note that vertical-align is only applicable to table cells and inline-level elements.

There are couple of ways to achieve vertical alignments which may or may not meet your needs. However I'll show you two methods from my favorites:

1. Using transform and top

.valign {
    position: relative;
    top: 50%;
    transform: translateY(-50%);
    /* vendor prefixes omitted due to brevity */
}

<div style="position: absolute; left: 50px; top: 50px;">
    <div style="text-align: left; position: absolute;height: 56px;background-color: pink;">
        <div class="valign" style="background-color: lightblue;">test</div>
    </div>
</div>

Vertically align absolutely positioned element with flexbox

To center the .container element with flex, you need to make the parent a flex container.

The justify-content and align-items properties are declared on a flex container, but apply to child elements (flex items).

However, since .container is absolutely positioned, flex won't work:

An absolutely-positioned child of a flex container does not participate in flex layout.

As an alternative, you can try this:

html { height: 100%; }

body {
   height: 100%;
   position: relative;
}

.container {
   position: absolute;
   left: 50%;
   top: 50%;
   transform: translate(-50%,-50%);
}

For an explanation of this centering method see this post:

• Element will not stay centered, especially when re-sizing screen

Vertical Align with Absolute Positioning

add a parent div with display:table and height:100% to .table-cell will fix this

So the html structure wil be :

   <div class="middle">
        <div class="table">
           <div class="table-cell">
               <p>test</p>
           </div>
        </div>    
  </div>

add this Style:

#sidebar .table{
   display:table;
   height:100%;
}

See jsfiddle I have modified

vertical align in pseudo-element with absolute position

You can reset the line-height to normal or so on the absolute positioned pseudo element, and use top: 50% + transform: translateY(-50%) to center it vertically.

I also suggest to use left: 100% rather than right: -180px, so that it works with dynamic button width.

.button {

  position: relative;

  background: gray;

  width: 200px;

  height: 36px;

  margin: 10px auto;

  text-align: center;

  line-height: 36px;

  cursor: pointer;

}

.button:after {

  content: attr(data-text);

  position: absolute;

  top: 50%;

  transform: translateY(-50%);

  left: 100%;

  margin-left: 10px;

  width: 170px;

  text-align: left;

  line-height: normal;

  cursor: default;

  background: pink;

}

<div>

  <div class="button" data-text="response text here">click me!</div>

  <div class="button" data-text="response text response text here">click me!</div>

</div>

Center horizontally and vertically an absolute positioned element without knowing the size

Explanation

Change the CSS property position of the wrapper to relative and of element you want centered to absolute.

Then position the element in the middle of the wrapper using top: 50% and left: 50%.

After this you will notice that the element is not exactly centered, because it's own height and width are off the calculation.

So we fix with the property transform: translate(-50%, -50%), which brings the element half of it's height up, and half it's width left. The result will be a vertically and horizontally centered element.

Since we are taking IE8 into consideration, we will use a filter to achieve the same effect as the transform: translate.

In order to generate the filter attribute, the following resource was used: IE's CSS3 Transforms Translator

Example

.box {

  margin: 10px;

  display: inline-block;

  position: relative;

}

.box span {

  position: absolute;

  top: 50%;

  left: 50%;

  background: #fff;

  box-shadow: 0 0 3px rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);

  padding: 5px;

}

.box.translate > span {

  transform: translate(-50%, -50%);

  -ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Matrix(M11=1, M12=0, M21=0, M22=1, SizingMethod='auto expand')";

}

<div class="box translate">

  <img src="http://placehold.it/500x200" />

  <span>centered text</span>

</div>

position: absolute and vertical-align: middle

Yes, you need to remove position: absolute from .data, and absolute position the .bar-chart-bar and set the z-index accordingly :

.bar-chart-bar {
  background-color: #e8e8e8;
  display: block;
  position: absolute;
  width: 100%;
  height: 20px;
  top: 0;
  left: 0;
  z-index: -1;
}

https://jsfiddle.net/jamesking/pr1v6Lhd/2/

css. vertical center in absolute positioned DIV

A modern way to go is like this (I recommend the extra div):

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<style>

.title {
    height: 100%;
    position: absolute;
    text-align: center;
    width: 100%;
}

.title-inner {
    position: relative;
    top: 50%;
    transform: translateY(-50%);
}

</style>
</head>
<body>

<div class="title">
    <div class="title-inner">
        <div>
            <span>03</span>
        </div>
        <h2>
            title
        </h2>
    </div>
</div>

</body>
</html>

Vertical align a button in an absolute positioned div

The alignment issue you see is being caused by the margin-top: -17px line as seen by this updated fiddle with that line removed on the .btn class: Updated Demo

On another note, vertical alignment is notoriously problematic with old CSS selectors, and it would be a good idea to transition over to Flexbox unless you needed to support older browsers.

Here's your problem with the new display: flex selector and corresponding sub-selectors: Demo w/ Flexbox. This removes the emphasis on having to pixel fudge to get proper vertical alignment.

New .box class

.box {
    width:200px;
    height:100%;
    position:absolute;
    left:0;
    top:0;
    background:yellow;
    text-align:center;
    padding:20px;
    /* New lines for alignment */
    display: flex;
    align-items: center;
    justify-content: center;
}

New .btn class (just removed the old tags)

.btn {
    display:inline-block;
    padding:5px 12px;
    line-height:34px;
    color:#fff;
    background:red;
}

EDIT: After researching block elements have the property to expand to 100% of the parent container. This can be explained in more detail here. This is why display:block div expands until it reaches the padding on the .box class.

To answer why the display: inline-block element is slightly misaligned is because by default it is aligned on the baseline. See here for reference. Changing the vertical alignment of the div to be vertical-align: top will fix this.

Here is the new fiddle that uses all your previous syntax just with the added vertical-align: middle property.

Vertically centering, absolute position, multiple elements

Make the children inline-block and use vertical-align:middle. No need for positioning.

a {

  vertical-align: middle;

  display: inline-block;

}

.parent-container {

  text-align: center;

  background:palegoldenrod

}

<div class="parent-container">

  <a href="">Some content</a>

  <a href="">

    <img src="http://www.fillmurray.com/140/100">

  </a>

</div>

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