Tutorial

CSS vertical-align Property

CSS

By Alligator.io
Published onSeptember 3, 2020

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Introduction

vertical-align defines the vertical alignment for the content of a table cell or for an inline element against the rest of the inline flow.

vertical-align can take a % or length value, or it can take one of the following 8 keywords:

baseline: The default. Baseline of the element aligned to the baseline of the parent.
bottom: Bottom of the element aligned to the complete bottom of the line.
middle: Middle of the element aligned to half the x-height of the parent. The x-height is the height of the text without the character ascenders or descenders.
sub: Baseline of the element aligned to the subscript baseline of the parent.
super: Baseline of the element aligned to the superscript baseline of the parent.
text-bottom: Bottom of the element aligned to the bottom of the text.
text-top: Top of the element aligned to the top of the text.
top: Top of the element aligned to the top of the line.

If a length value is provided, the element is aligned at the specified length above the baseline of the parent.

If a % value is provided, the element is aligned at the specified % above the baseline of the parent, with the % being a reference to the line-height.

Here’s an example using vertical-align:

.avatar {
  vertical-align: middle;
}

Examples

It can be hard to visualize the effects of the different keyword values for vertical-align, so here are examples with an inline seashell emoji (🐚) placed with different values: