Question

I need to center an element both vertically and horizontally and the element can’t have any fixed dimensions. The contents of the element must not be affected…meaning some elements will be text-align left, others center, they may be images, etc etc.

Here’s where I’m at currently: http://jsfiddle.net/Shpigford/BUbmz/

The width and height of the blue block changes dynamically based on the content and centers horizontally, which works fine.

But what I now need to do is center the blue block vertically.

The blue block can’t have any fixed dimensions, though the red block can.

Here’s my CSS:

section {
  width: 500px;
  height: 300px;
  background: red;
}
.options {
  display:table;
  margin: 0 auto;
  background: blue;
}
h2 {
  text-align: center;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
}
ul {
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  text-align: center;
}
li {
  text-align: left;
}

And HTML:

<section>
  <div class="options">
    <h2>My question</h2>
    <ul>
      <li>Ligula Quam</li>
      <li>Condimentum Nullam Mollis</li>
      <li>Aenean</li>
      <li>Commodo Dolor Nibh Ligula Vulputate</li>
    </ul>
  </div>
</section>

Answer 1

Here’s a solution for centering DIVs vertically, with fallbacks for various browsers, including older IE versions.

http://www.jakpsatweb.cz/css/css-vertical-center-solution.html

[edit]

Translated, your fiddle becomes like this:

http://jsfiddle.net/GolezTrol/BUbmz/1/