css - positioning

CSS helps you to position your HTML element. You can put any HTML element at whatever location you like. You can specify whether you want the element positioned relative to its natural position in the page or absolute based on its parent element.

Now we will see all the CSS positioning related properties with examples:

Relative Positioning:

Relative positioning changes the position of the HTML element relative to where it normally appears. So "left:20" adds 20 pixels to the element's LEFT position.

You can use two values top and left alongwith position property to move an HTML element anywhere in HTML document. Here's a quick reference when moving HTML elements in CSS.

Move Left - Use a negative value for left.
Move Right - Use a positive value for left.
Move Up - Use a negative value for top.
Move Down - Use a positive value for top.

NOTE: You can use bottom or right values as well in the same way as top and left.

Here is the example:

<div style="position:relative;left:80px;top:2px;
            background-color:yellow;">
This div has relative positioning.
</div>

This will produce following result:

This div has relative positioning.

Absolute Positioning:

An element with position: absolute is positioned at the specified coordinates relative to your screen top left corner.

You can use two values top and left alongwith position property to move an HTML element anywhere in HTML document. Here's a quick reference when moving HTML elements in CSS.

Move Left - Use a negative value for left.
Move Right - Use a positive value for left.
Move Up - Use a negative value for top.
Move Down - Use a positive value for top.

NOTE: You can use bottom or right values as well in the same way as top and left.

Here is the example:

<div style="position:absolute;left:80px;top:20px;
            background-color:yellow;">
This div has absolute positioning.
</div>

Fixed Positioning:

Fixed positioning allows you to fix the position of an element to a particular spot on the page - regardless of scrolling. Specified coordinates will be relative to the browser window.

You can use two values top and left alongwith position property to move an HTML element anywhere in HTML document. Here's a quick reference when moving HTML elements in CSS.

Move Left - Use a negative value for left.
Move Right - Use a positive value for left.
Move Up - Use a negative value for top.
Move Down - Use a positive value for top.

NOTE: You can use bottom or right values as well in the same way as top and left.

Here is the example:

<div style="position:fixed;left:80px;top:20px;
            background-color:yellow;">
This div has fixed positioning.
</div>