How to apply multiple transforms in CSS?

Solution 1:

You have to put them on one line like this:

li:nth-child(2) {
    transform: rotate(15deg) translate(-20px,0px);
}

When you have multiple transform directives, only the last one will be applied. It's like any other CSS rule.

Keep in mind multiple transform one line directives are applied from right to left.

This: transform: scale(1,1.5) rotate(90deg);
and: transform: rotate(90deg) scale(1,1.5);

will not produce the same result:

.orderOne, .orderTwo {
  font-family: sans-serif;
  font-size: 22px;
  color: #000;
  display: inline-block;
}

.orderOne {
  transform: scale(1, 1.5) rotate(90deg);
}

.orderTwo {
  transform: rotate(90deg) scale(1, 1.5);
}

<div class="orderOne">
  A
</div>

<div class="orderTwo">
  A
</div>

Solution 2:

I'm adding this answer not because it's likely to be helpful but just because it's true.

In addition to using the existing answers explaining how to make more than one translation by chaining them, you can also construct the 4x4 matrix yourself

I grabbed the following image from some random site I found while googling which shows rotational matrices:

Rotation around x axis:
Rotation around y axis:
Rotation around z axis:

I couldn't find a good example of translation, so assuming I remember/understand it right, translation:

[1 0 0 0]
[0 1 0 0]
[0 0 1 0]
[x y z 1]

See more at the Wikipedia article on transformation as well as the Pragamatic CSS3 tutorial which explains it rather well. Another guide I found which explains arbitrary rotation matrices is Egon Rath's notes on matrices

Matrix multiplication works between these 4x4 matrices of course, so to perform a rotation followed by a translation, you make the appropriate rotation matrix and multiply it by the translation matrix.

This can give you a bit more freedom to get it just right, and will also make it pretty much completely impossible for anyone to understand what it's doing, including you in five minutes.

But, you know, it works.

Edit: I just realized that I missed mentioning probably the most important and practical use of this, which is to incrementally create complex 3D transformations via JavaScript, where things will make a bit more sense.