How do I vertically align text in a div?

Question

I am trying to find the most effective way to align text with a div. I have tried a few things and none seem to work.

.testimonialText {
  position: absolute;
  left: 15px;
  top: 15px;
  width: 150px;
  height: 309px;
  vertical-align: middle;
  text-align: center;
  font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;
  font-style: italic;
  padding: 1em 0 1em 0;
}

<div class="testimonialText">
  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor
  in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
</div>

Answer 1

For a CSS 2 browser, one can use display:table/display:table-cell to center content.

A sample is also available at JSFiddle:

div { border:1px solid green;}

<div style="display: table; height: 400px; overflow: hidden;">
  <div style="display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;">
    <div>
      everything is vertically centered in modern IE8+ and others.
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

It is possible to merge hacks for old browsers (Internet Explorer 6/7) into styles with using # to hide styles from newer browsers:

div { border:1px solid green;}

<div style="display: table; height: 400px; #position: relative; overflow: hidden;">
  <div style=
    "#position: absolute; #top: 50%;display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;">
    <div style=" #position: relative; #top: -50%">
      everything is vertically centered
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

Answer 2

You need to add the line-height attribute and that attribute must match the height of the div. In your case:

.center {
  height: 309px;
  line-height: 309px; /* same as height! */
}

<div class="center">
  A single line.
</div>

In fact, you could probably remove the height attribute altogether.

This only works for one line of text though, so be careful.

Answer 3

Here's a great resource

Centering in CSS is a pain in the ass. There seems to be a gazillion ways to do it, depending on a variety of factors. This consolidates them and gives you the code you need for each situation.

Using Flexbox

Inline with keeping this post up to date with the latest tech, here's a much easier way to center something using Flexbox. Flexbox isn't supported in Internet Explorer 9 and lower.

Here are some great resources:

• A guide to Flexbox
• Centering elements with Flexbox
• Internet Explorer 10 syntax for Flexbox
• Support for Flexbox

JSFiddle with browser prefixes

li {
  display: flex;
  justify-content: center;
  align-content: center;
  flex-direction: column;
  /* Column | row */
}

<ul>
  <li>
    <p>Some Text</p>
  </li>
  <li>
    <p>A bit more text that goes on two lines</p>
  </li>
  <li>
    <p>Even more text that demonstrates how lines can span multiple lines</p>
  </li>
</ul>

Another solution

This is from zerosixthree and lets you center anything with six lines of CSS

This method isn't supported in Internet Explorer 8 and lower.

jsfiddle

p {
  text-align: center;
  position: relative;
  top: 50%;
  -ms-transform: translateY(-50%);
  -webkit-transform: translateY(-50%);
  transform: translateY(-50%);
}

<ul>
  <li>
    <p>Some Text</p>
  </li>
  <li>
    <p>A bit more text that goes on two lines</p>
  </li>
  <li>
    <p>Even more text that demonstrates how lines can span multiple lines</p>
  </li>
</ul>

Previous answer

A simple and cross-browser approach, useful as links in the marked answer are slightly outdated.

How to vertically and horizontally center text in both an unordered list and a div without resorting to JavaScript or CSS line heights. No matter how much text you have you won't have to apply any special classes to specific lists or divs (the code is the same for each). This works on all major browsers including Internet Explorer 9, Internet Explorer 8, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 6, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari. There are two special stylesheets (one for Internet Explorer 7 and another for Internet Explorer 6) to help them along due to their CSS limitations which modern browsers don't have.

As I didn't care much for Internet Explorer 7/6 for the last project I worked on, I used a slightly stripped down version (i.e. removed the stuff that made it work in Internet Explorer 7 and 6). It might be useful for somebody else...

JSFiddle

.outerContainer {
  display: table;
  width: 100px;
  /* Width of parent */
  height: 100px;
  /* Height of parent */
  overflow: hidden;
}

.outerContainer .innerContainer {
  display: table-cell;
  vertical-align: middle;
  width: 100%;
  margin: 0 auto;
  text-align: center;
}

li {
  background: #ddd;
  width: 100px;
  height: 100px;
}

<ul>
  <li>
    <div class="outerContainer">
      <div class="innerContainer">
        <div class="element">
          <p>
            <!-- Content -->
            Content
          </p>
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </li>

  <li>
    <div class="outerContainer">
      <div class="innerContainer">
        <div class="element">
          <p>
            <!-- Content -->
            Content
          </p>
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </li>
</ul>