How to vertically align 2 different sizes of text?

I know to vertically align text to the middle of a block, you set the line-height to the same height of the block.

However, if I have a sentence with a word in the middle, that is 2em. If the entire sentence has a line-height the same as the containing block, then the larger text is vertically aligned but the smaller text is on the same baseline as the larger text.

How can I set it so both sizes of text are vertically aligned, so the larger text will be on a baseline lower than the smaller text?

Solution 1:

Try vertical-align:middle; on inline containers?

EDIT : it works but all your text must be in an inline container, like this :

    <div style="height:100px; line-height:100px; background:#EEE;">
        <span style="vertical-align:middle;">test</span>
        <span style="font-size:2em; vertical-align:middle;">test</span>
    </div>

Solution 2:

The functionality you are seeing is correct because the default for "vertical-align" is baseline. It appears that you want vertical-align:top. There are other options. See here at W3Schools.

Edit W3Schools has not cleaned up their act and still, appear, to be a shoddy (at best) source of information. I now use sitepoint. Scroll to the bottom of the sitepoint front page to access their reference sections.

Solution 3:

the two set of text must have the same fixed line-height and the vertical-align set

 span{
     vertical-align: bottom;
     line-height: 50px;
}

Solution 4:

Easy way - use flex:

<div>
        abcde
        &nbsp;&nbsp;
        <span>efghai</span>
</div>

<style>
    div {
        padding: 20px;
        background-color: orange;
        display: flex;
        align-items: center; }

    span {
        font-size: 1.5em; }
</style>