How can I position my div at the bottom of its container?
Given the following HTML:
<div id="container">
<!-- Other elements here -->
<div id="copyright">
Copyright Foo web designs
</div>
</div>I would like #copyright to stick to the bottom of #container. Can I achieve this without using absolute positioning?
Likely not.
Assign position:relative to #container, and then position:absolute; bottom:0; to #copyright.
#container {
position: relative;
}
#copyright {
position: absolute;
bottom: 0;
}<div id="container">
<!-- Other elements here -->
<div id="copyright">
Copyright Foo web designs
</div>
</div>Actually, the accepted answer by @User will only work if the window is tall and the content is short. But if the content is tall and the window is short, it will put the copyright info over the page content, and then scrolling down to see the content will leave you with a floating copyright notice. That makes this solution useless for most pages (like this page, actually).
The most common way of doing this is the "CSS sticky footer" approach demonstrated, or a slightly slimmer variation. This approach works great -- IF you have a fixed height footer.
If you need a variable height footer that will appear at the bottom of the window if the content is too short, and at the bottom of the content if the window is too short, what do you do?
Swallow your pride and use a table.
For example:
* {
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}
html, body {
height: 100%;
}
#container {
height: 100%;
border-collapse: collapse;
}<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<table id="container">
<tr>
<td valign="top">
<div id="main">Lorem ipsum, etc.</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="bottom">
<div id="footer">Copyright some evil company...</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>Try it out. This will work for any window size, for any amount of content, for any size footer, on every browser... even IE6.
If you're cringing at the thought of using a table for layout, take a second to ask yourself why. CSS was supposed to make our lives easier -- and it has, overall -- but the fact is that even after all these years, it's still a broken, counter-intuitive mess. It can't solve every problem. It's incomplete.
Tables aren't cool, but at least for now, they are sometimes the best way to solve a design problem.
The flexbox approach!
In supported browsers, you can use the following:
Example Here
.parent {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
}
.child {
margin-top: auto;
}
.parent {
height: 100px;
border: 5px solid #000;
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
}
.child {
height: 40px;
width: 100%;
background: #f00;
margin-top: auto;
}<div class="parent">
<div class="child">Align to the bottom</div>
</div>The solution above is probably more flexible, however, here is an alternative solution:
Example Here
.parent {
display: flex;
}
.child {
align-self: flex-end;
}
.parent {
height: 100px;
border: 5px solid #000;
display: flex;
}
.child {
height: 40px;
width: 100%;
background: #f00;
align-self: flex-end;
}<div class="parent">
<div class="child">Align to the bottom</div>
</div>As a side note, you may want to add vendor prefixes for additional support.
Yes you can do this without absolute positioning and without using tables (which screw with markup and such).
DEMO
This is tested to work on IE>7, chrome, FF & is a really easy thing to add to your existing layout.
<div id="container">
Some content you don't want affected by the "bottom floating" div
<div>supports not just text</div>
<div class="foot">
Some other content you want kept to the bottom
<div>this is in a div</div>
</div>
</div>
#container {
height:100%;
border-collapse:collapse;
display : table;
}
.foot {
display : table-row;
vertical-align : bottom;
height : 1px;
}
It effectively does what float:bottom would, even accounting for the issue pointed out in @Rick Reilly's answer!
Its an old question, but this is a unique approach that can help in several cases.
Pure CSS, Without Absolute positioning, Without Fixing any Height, Cross-Browser (IE9+)
check out that Working Fiddle
Because normal flow is 'top-to-bottom' we can't simply ask the #copyright div to stick to the bottom of his parent without absolutely positioning of some sort, But if we wanted the #copyright div to stick to the top of his parent, it will be very simple - because this is the normal flow way.
So we will use this in our advantage.
we will change the order of the divs in the HTML, now the #copyright div is at the top, and the content follow it right away.
we also make the content div stretch all the way (using pseudo elements and clearing techniques)
now it's just a matter of inverting that order back in the view. that can be easily done with CSS transform.
We rotate the container by 180deg, and now: up-is-down. (and we inverse back the content to look normal again)
If we want to have a scroolbar within the content area, we need to apply a little bit more of CSS magic. as can be showed Here [in that example, the content is below a header - but its the same idea]
* {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
html,
body,
#Container {
height: 100%;
color: white;
}
#Container:before {
content: '';
height: 100%;
float: left;
}
#Copyright {
background-color: green;
}
#Stretch {
background-color: blue;
}
#Stretch:after {
content: '';
display: block;
clear: both;
}
#Container,
#Container>div {
-moz-transform: rotateX(180deg);
-ms-transform: rotateX(180deg);
-o-transform: rotate(180deg);
-webkit-transform: rotateX(180deg);
transform: rotateX(180deg);
}<div id="Container">
<div id="Copyright">
Copyright Foo web designs
</div>
<div id="Stretch">
<!-- Other elements here -->
<div>Element 1</div>
<div>Element 2</div>
</div>
</div>