I have a div tag with width set to 800 pixels. When the browser width is greater than 800 pixels, it shouldn't stretch the div, but it should bring it to the middle of the page.

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27 Answers

<body> <div> centered content </div> </body>
12

position: absolute and then top:50% and left:50% places the top edge at the vertical center of the screen, and the left edge at the horizontal center, then by adding margin-top to the negative of the height of the div, i.e., -100 shifts it above by 100 and similarly for margin-left. This gets the div exactly in the center of the page.

#outPopUp { position: absolute; width: 300px; height: 200px; z-index: 15; top: 50%; left: 50%; margin: -100px 0 0 -150px; background: red; }
<div></div>
8

Flexbox solution is the way to go in/from 2015. justify-content: center is used for the parent element to align the content to the center of it.

HTML

<div> <div>Center</div> </div>

CSS

.container { display: flex; justify-content: center; }

Output

.container { display: flex; justify-content: center; } .center { width: 400px; padding: 10px; background: #5F85DB; color: #fff; font-weight: bold; font-family: Tahoma; }
<div> <div>Centered div with left aligned text.</div> </div>
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  1. Do you mean that you want to center it vertically or horizontally? You said you specified the height to 800 pixels, and wanted the div not to stretch when the width was greater than that...

  2. To center horizontally, you can use the margin: auto; attribute in CSS. Also, you'll have to make sure that the body and html elements don't have any margin or padding:

html, body { margin: 0; padding: 0; } #centeredDiv { margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; width: 800px; }
0
<div></div> 
div { display: table; margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; }
3

To make it also work correctly in Internet Explorer 6 you have to do it as follows:

HTML

<body> <div> centered content </div> </body>

CSS

body { margin: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center; /* !!! */ } .centered { margin: 0 auto; text-align: left; width: 800px; }
1

You can also use it like this:

<div> Your contents here... </div>
1

Div centered vertically and horizontally inside the parent without fixing the content size

Here on this page is a nice overview with several solutions, too much code to share here, but it shows what is possible...

Personally I like this solution with the famous transform translate -50% trick the most. It works well for both fixed (% or px) and undefined height and width of your element.
The code is as simple as:

HTML:

<div><div>

CSS:

.center { position: absolute; left: 50%; top: 50%; -moz-transform: translate(-50%, -50%); /* Firefox */ -ms-transform: translate(-50%, -50%); /* IE 9 */ -webkit-transform: translate(-50%, -50%); /* Safari and Chrome*/ -o-transform: translate(-50%, -50%); /* Opera */ transform: translate(-50%, -50%); /* optional size in px or %: */ width: 100px; height: 100px; }

Here a fiddle that shows that it works

3

Simply use the center tag just after the body tag, and end the center tag just before body ends:

<body> <center> ... Your code here ... </center> </body>

This worked for me with all the browsers I have tried.

5

This can be easily achieved via flex container.

.container{ width: 100%; display: flex; height: 100vh; justify-content: center; } .item{ align-self: center; }

Preview Link

Add this class to the div you want centered (which should have a set width):

.marginAutoLR { margin-right:auto; margin-left:auto; }

Or, add the margin stuff to your div class, like this:

.divClass { width:300px; margin-right:auto; margin-left:auto; }
3

Use the CSS flex property: 

body { /* Centered */ display: box; flex-align: center; flex-pack: center; }
2

Some other pre-existing setups from older code that will prevent div page centering L&R are:

  1. Other classes hidden in external stylesheet links.
  2. Other classes embedded in something like an img (like for older external CSS print format controls).
  3. Legend code with IDs and/or CLASSES will conflict with a named div class.

Centering without specifying div width:

body { text-align: center; } body * { text-align: initial; } body div { display: inline-block; }

This is something like <center> tag does, except:

  • all direct inline childs elements (eg. <h1>) of <center> will also positioned to center
  • inline-block element can have different size (comapred to display:block setting) according to browser defaults
1

Use the below code for centering the div box:

.box-content{ margin: auto; top: 0; right: 0; bottom: 0; left: 0; position: absolute; width: 800px; height: 100px; background-color: green; }
<div> </div>
1

If you have some regular content, and not only one line of text, the only possible reason I know is to calculate margin.

Here is an example:

HTML

<div> <div> <div>first</div> <div> <div>second</div> <div>third</div> </div> </div> </div>

CSS

body { margin: 0; padding: 0; } .common { border: 1px solid black; } #supercontainer { width: 1200px; background: aqua; float: left; } #middlecontainer { float: left; width: 104px; margin: 0 549px; } #container { float: left; } #first { background: red; height: 102px; width: 50px; float: left; } #second { background: green; height: 50px; width: 50px; } #third { background: yellow; height: 50px; width: 50px; }

So, #supercontainer is your "whole page" and its width is 1200px.

#middlecontainer is div with content of your site; it's width 102px. In case the width of content is known, you need to divide the page's size to 2, and subtract half of content's width from the result: 1200 / 2 - (102 / 2) = 549;

Yes, I'm also seeing that this is der grosse fail of CSS.

.middle { margin:0 auto; text-align: center; }

/* it brings div to center */

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parent { position: relative; } child { position: absolute; left: 50%; transform: translateX(-50%); }
<parent> <child> </child> </parent>

Use justify-content and align-items to horizontally and vertically align a div

html, body, .container { height: 100%; width: 100%; } .container { display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; } .mydiv { width: 80px; }
<div> <div>h & v aligned</div> </div>
1
body, html { display: table; height: 100%; width: 100%; } .container { display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle; } .container .box { width: 100px; height: 100px; background: red; margin: 0 auto; }

"width:100%" for the "body" tag is only for an example. In a real project you may remove this property.

1

Simple 

html { display: table; height: 100%; width: 100%; } body { display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle; } .content { margin: 0 auto; width: 260px; text-align: center; background: pink; }

This also works in Internet Explorer, but auto margins do not.

.centered { position: absolute; display: inline-block; left: -500px; width: 1000px; margin: 0 50%; }
1

If your center content is deep inside other divs then only margin can save you. Nothing else. I face it always when not using a framework like Bootstrap.

In my case, the phone screen size is unknown, and here is what I did.

HTML

<div></div>

CSS

.loadingImg{ position: fixed; top: 0px; left: 0px; z-index: 9999999; border: 0; background: url('../images/loading.gif') no-repeat center; background-size: 50px 50px; display: block; margin: 0 auto; -webkit-border-radius: 50px; border-radius: 50px; }

JavaScript (before you need to show this DIV)

$(".loadingImg").css("height",$(document).height()); $(".loadingImg").css("width",$(document).width()); $(".loadingImg").show(); 
<body> <div> In center </div> </body>

If you want to change the vertical position, change the value of 250 and you can arrange the content as per your need. There is no need to give the width and other parameters.

For some reason, none of the previous answers worked for me really. This is what worked for me and it works across browsers as well:

.center { text-align: center; height: 100%; /* Safari, Opera, and Chrome */ display: -webkit-box; -webkit-box-pack: center; -webkit-box-align: center; /* Firefox */ display: -moz-box; -moz-box-pack: center; -moz-box-align: center; /* Internet Explorer 10 */ display: -ms-flexbox; -ms-flex-pack: center; -ms-flex-align: center; }
  • Get the width of the screen.
  • Then make margin left 25%
  • Make margin right 25%

In this way the content of your container will sit in the middle.

Example: suppose that container width = 800px;

<div class='container' width='device-width' id='updatedContent'> <p id='myContent'></p> <contents></contents> <contents></contents> </div> if ($("#myContent").parent === $("updatedContent")) { $("#myContent").css({ 'left': '-(device-width/0.25)px'; 'right': '-(device-width/0.225)px'; }); }