Using Auto Margins with Multiple Columns to Center DIVs with CSS - Tying the CSS styles to the structural markup
(Page 4 of 4 )
As you saw in the previous section, a simple implementation of CSS auto-margins permits us to build centered web page layouts with ease, regardless of the number of columns included in the page.
Nonetheless, it's necessary to tie the previous CSS styles to the structural markup of the web document created in the first segment of this tutorial, so you can see more clearly how this document is rendered on screen.
Bearing this concept in mind, here's a brand new (X)HTML file, which assembles these two layers and shows the finished layout. Take a look at it, please:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>Example on centering DIVS with a liquid layout (uses CSS auto margins)</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<style type="text/css">
body{
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
background: #999;
}
h2{
margin: 0;
font: bold 18px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
color: #000;
}
p{
font: normal 12px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
color: #000;
}
#header{
padding: 10px;
background: #ffc;
}
#wrapper{
width: 70%;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
background: #fff;
}
#navbar{
padding: 10px;
background: #fff;
}
#navbar ul{
list-style: none;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}
#navbar li{
display: inline;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}
#navbar a:link,#navbar a:visited{
margin-left: 20px;
font: normal 12px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
color: #000;
text-align: center;
text-decoration: none;
}
#navbar a:hover{
background: #fc0;
}
#leftcol{
float: left;
width: 20%;
padding: 10px;
}
#maincol{
float: left;
width: 50%;
padding: 10px;
}
#rightcol{
float: right;
width: 20%;
padding: 10px;
}
#footer{
clear: both;
padding: 10px;
background: #ffc;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="wrapper">
<div id="header">
<h2>This is the header of the web page</h2>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas enim. Nulla facilisi. Vestibulum accumsan augue vulputate justo. Fusce faucibus. Sed blandit, neque sed lacinia nonummy, diam quam imperdiet justo, at dictum augue nunc a neque. Sed urna lacus, tincidunt at, aliquam id, fringilla id, felis. Vivamus feugiat molestie quam. Sed id dolor. Sed ac purus id sapien.</p>
</div>
<div id="navbar">
<ul>
<li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="#" id="about">About Us</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Services</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Products</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div id="leftcol">
<h2>This is the left column of the web page</h2>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas enim. Nulla facilisi. Vestibulum accumsan augue vulputate justo. Fusce faucibus. Sed blandit, neque sed lacinia nonummy, diam quam imperdiet justo, at dictum augue nunc a neque. Sed urna lacus, tincidunt at, aliquam id, fringilla id, felis. Vivamus feugiat molestie quam. Sed id dolor. Sed ac purus id sapien.</p>
</div>
<div id="maincol">
<h2>This is main section of the web page</h2>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas enim. Nulla facilisi. Vestibulum accumsan augue vulputate justo. Fusce faucibus. Sed blandit, neque sed lacinia nonummy, diam quam imperdiet justo, at dictum augue nunc a neque. Sed urna lacus, tincidunt at, aliquam id, fringilla id, felis. Vivamus feugiat molestie quam. Sed id dolor. Sed ac purus id sapien.</p>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas enim. Nulla facilisi. Vestibulum accumsan augue vulputate justo. Fusce faucibus. Sed blandit, neque sed lacinia nonummy, diam quam imperdiet justo, at dictum augue nunc a neque. Sed urna lacus, tincidunt at, aliquam id, fringilla id, felis. Vivamus feugiat molestie quam. Sed id dolor. Sed ac purus id sapien.</p>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas enim. Nulla facilisi. Vestibulum accumsan augue vulputate justo. Fusce faucibus. Sed blandit, neque sed lacinia nonummy, diam quam imperdiet justo, at dictum augue nunc a neque. Sed urna lacus, tincidunt at, aliquam id, fringilla id, felis. Vivamus feugiat molestie quam. Sed id dolor. Sed ac purus id sapien.</p>
</div>
<div id="rightcol">
<h2>This is the right column of the web page</h2>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas enim. Nulla facilisi. Vestibulum accumsan augue vulputate justo. Fusce faucibus. Sed blandit, neque sed lacinia nonummy, diam quam imperdiet justo, at dictum augue nunc a neque. Sed urna lacus, tincidunt at, aliquam id, fringilla id, felis. Vivamus feugiat molestie quam. Sed id dolor. Sed ac purus id sapien.</p>
</div>
<div id="footer">
<h2>This is the footer section of the web page</h2>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas enim. Nulla facilisi. Vestibulum accumsan augue vulputate justo. Fusce faucibus. Sed blandit, neque sed lacinia nonummy, diam quam imperdiet justo, at dictum augue nunc a neque. Sed urna lacus, tincidunt at, aliquam id, fringilla id, felis. Vivamus feugiat molestie quam. Sed id dolor. Sed ac purus id sapien.</p>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas enim. Nulla facilisi. Vestibulum accumsan augue vulputate justo. Fusce faucibus. Sed blandit, neque sed lacinia nonummy, diam quam imperdiet justo, at dictum augue nunc a neque. Sed urna lacus, tincidunt at, aliquam id, fringilla id, felis. Vivamus feugiat molestie quam. Sed id dolor. Sed ac purus id sapien.</p>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas enim. Nulla facilisi. Vestibulum accumsan augue vulputate justo. Fusce faucibus. Sed blandit, neque sed lacinia nonummy, diam quam imperdiet justo, at dictum augue nunc a neque. Sed urna lacus, tincidunt at, aliquam id, fringilla id, felis. Vivamus feugiat molestie quam. Sed id dolor. Sed ac purus id sapien.</p>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Definitely, understanding how the above (X)HTML file works isn't rocket science, is it? Yet, despite its simple structure, it comes in useful for illustrating how CSS auto-margins can be used in conjunction with a multi-column web page to construct a centered layout.
In addition to listing the previous code sample, below I included an screen capture that shows how this web page design is displayed on the browser:
Now that you have at your disposal a functional example that demonstrates the actual functionality of CSS auto-margins, feel free to use it as a starting point for developing your own centered web document layouts. The experience will be fun, trust me!
Final thoughts
In this fifth part of the series, you hopefully learned how to make use of CSS auto-margins for building a centered, multi-column web page design. As you saw for yourself, this process is pretty straightforward and only requires a basic background in CSS and (X)HTML. That's all.
In the forthcoming article, I'll be introducing yet another simple CSS approach, called "evened margins," which can also be used for creating centered designs in a truly painless way.
Therefore, if you wish to learn how this technique will be utilized, don't miss the next part!
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