Centering in the unknown

Question

I would like to center and clamp the dimensions of a child div inside its parent.

<style type='text/css'>
  .parent {
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
  }
  .child {
    max-width: 100%;
    max-height: 100%;
  }
</style>

<div class="parent">
  <div class="child">
    <img src='dog.jpg' />
  </div>
</div>

Here are the constraints:

The parent div is set to occupy the entire screen (of unknown size), so width:100% and height:100%.
The width and height of the child div are unknown. In one use case, the child div contains an image. In another, it contains a video.
The width and height of the child div must be constrained to the size of the parent, so max-width: 100% and max-height: 100%.
The child div must be vertically and horizontally centered inside the parent.
Ideally, this should work without javascript.
IE can be left unsupported :)

I've tried all the techniques listed in this excellent article, 'Absolute Centering in CSS' , and none of them pan out. Here's why:

Absolute centering: In order for this technique to work with a child of unknown size, you must set display:table on the child. You can then constrain the max-width of the child's contents, but not the max-height, because by CSS 2.1 rules, tables render to fit their contents.
Negative margins: Doesn't allow for variable height.
Transforms: Undesirable because it can result in blurry rendering.
Table-cell: Fails for the same reason that absolute centering fails, i.e. table rendering.
Inline-block: Doesn't work in the important case where the child is 100% width.
Flexbox: Works well until a window resize occurs, at which point you have to force a Webkit redraw to propagate the centering changes. This hack does the job, but it's still a hack. I want to believe there's a more elegant solution to this.

I like the zen nature of this question's title. – Jason Sperske Nov 18 '13 at 04:49 — Jason Sperske, Nov 18 '13 at 04:49

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 18 '13 at 05:19

Best solution here is to use :before pseudo element. Check out this article on centering the unknown, http://css-tricks.com/centering-in-the-unknown/

SEE THE DEMO HERE

body,html {
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
    margin: 0;
}
.container {
  text-align: center;
  background: #ccc;
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;

}

.container:before {
  content: '';
  display: inline-block;
  height: 100%; 
  vertical-align: middle;
  margin-right: -0.25em; /* Adjusts for spacing */
 }

.image {
  display: inline-block;
  max-width: 100%;
  max-height: 100%;
  vertical-align: middle;
  padding: 10px 15px;
  border: #a0a0a0 solid 1px;
  background: #f5f5f5;
 }

This works great, thanks! It seems I was misled by the author of the [Absolute Centering](http://codepen.io/shshaw/full/gEiDt) article. I still don't get what he's saying about the child div needing a width of 100% - 0.25em or less. Oh well, this answer will do :) — dcapotation, Nov 18 '13 at 07:01

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 18 '13 at 07:00

You could use display:table and display:table-cell like so Jsfiddle. Though this will just center the image of the child div.

If you need to have a centered div around the image you could always add another div inside of the child div with the style display: inline-block example

Centering in the unknown

2 Answers2

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