CSS: Center block, but align contents to the left

user_90025 0
Viewed 213251

I want a whole block to be centered in its parent, but I want the contents of the block to be left aligned.

Examples serve best

On this page :

http://yaml-online-parser.appspot.com/?yaml=%23+ASCII+Art%0d%0a---+%7c%0d%0a++%5c%2f%2f%7c%7c%5c%2f%7c%7c%0d%0a++%2f%2f+%7c%7c++%7c%7c__%0d%0a&type=python

the ascii art should be centered (as it appears) but it should line up and look like "YAML".

Or this :

http://yaml-online-parser.appspot.com/?yaml=%3f+-+Detroit+Tigers%0d%0a++-+Chicago+cubs%0d%0a%3a%0d%0a++-+2001-07-23%0d%0a%0d%0a%3f+%5b+New+York+Yankees%2c%0d%0a++++Atlanta+Braves+%5d%0d%0a%3a+%5b+2001-07-02%2c+2001-08-12%2c%0d%0a++++2001-08-14+%5d%0d%0a

the error message should all line up as it does in a console.

center alignment css
9 Answers

Reposting the working answer from the other question: How to horizontally center a floating element of a variable width?

Assuming the element which is floated and will be centered is a div with an id="content" ...

<body>
<div id="wrap">
   <div id="content">
   This will be centered
   </div>
</div>
</body>

And apply the following CSS

#wrap {
    float: left;
    position: relative;
    left: 50%;
}

#content {
    float: left;
    position: relative;
    left: -50%;
}

Here is a good reference regarding that http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/35-floats-and-clearing/#centeringfloats

user_900250

If I understand you well, you need to use to center a container (or block)

margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;

and to left align it's contents:

text-align: left;
user_321730

I've found the easiest way to centre and left-align text inside a container is the following:

HTML:

<div>
  <p>Some interesting text.</p>
</div>

CSS:

P {
  width: 50%; //or whatever looks best
  margin: auto; //top and bottom margin can be added for aesthetic effect
}

Hope this is what you were looking for as it took me quite a bit of searching just to figure out this pretty basic solution.

user_70926930

Normally you should use margin: 0 auto on the div as mentioned in the other answers, but you'll have to specify a width for the div. If you don't want to specify a width you could either (this is depending on what you're trying to do) use margins, something like margin: 0 200px; , this should make your content seems as if it's centered, you could also see the answer of Leyu to my question

Waleed_Eissa_6760660 
<div>
    <div style="text-align: left; width: 400px; border: 1px solid black; margin: 0 auto;">
         <pre>
Hello
Testing
Beep
         </pre>
    </div>
</div>
user_1488700

For those of us still working with older browsers, here's some extended backwards compatibility:

<div style="text-align: center;">
    <div style="display:-moz-inline-stack; display:inline-block; zoom:1; *display:inline; text-align: left;">
        Line 1: Testing<br>
        Line 2: More testing<br>
        Line 3: Even more testing<br>
    </div>
</div>

Partially inspired by this post: https://stackoverflow.com/a/12567422/14999964.

user_149999640
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