CSS margin-left PropertyS2C Home « CSS margin-left Property

Definition

The CSS margin-left property allows us to specify the margin space to the left of the padding and border for an element.

Applies To

All elements except elements with table display types other than inline-table, table and table-caption.

Property Values

CSS allows specification of a margin width.

negative values are acceptable for when you want to overlap elements.

auto - The browser sets the left margin and this can vary from browser to browser.

inherit - The margin-left properties are inherited from the parent element.

length - Defines a left margin space in a unit measurement such as em or pixel.

n% - A percentage value relative to the parent element where n is a number.

Default Value

Default value of margin-left is set to 0.

Inheritance

The margin-left property is NOT inherited from the parent element unless specified using the inherit property value.

Browser Anomalies

IE5, IE6 and IE7 do not support the inherit property value.
IE8 does with a valid !DOCTYPE.
IE9+ supports the inherit property value.

As mentioned above setting the property value to auto is browser dependant.

Position In The Box Model

box model diagram left margin

Example



<!DOCTYPE html> 
<!-- Our HTML/CSS for the CSS margin-left property follows -->
<html  lang="en">
<head>
<title>CSS Reference - CSS margin-left Property</title>

<!-- Valid values for CSS margin-left Property are:
	
	auto, inherit, length and percentage. 
	
--> 

<style type="text/css">

/* This left margin set to 50px */
#img1 {
	margin-left: 50px;
}

/* This left margin set to 150px */
#img2 {
	margin-left: 150px;
}

/* This left margin set to -75px */
#img3 {
	margin-left: -75px;
}

</style>

</head>
<body>
<h1>Looking at the CSS margin-left Property</h1>
<p>The next image has a left margin of 50 pixels. 
<img id="img1" src="https://server2client.com/images/beefalepiesmall.jpg"
    alt="Beef Pie">
</p>
<p>The next image has a left margin of 150 pixels.
<img id="img2" src="https://server2client.com/images/beefalepiesmall.jpg"
    alt="Beef Pie">
</p><p>The next image has a negative left margin of 75 pixels.
<img id="img3" src="https://server2client.com/images/beefalepiesmall.jpg"
    alt="Beef Pie">
</p>
</body>
</html>

How It Looks

The results of using the margin-left property with the values above will look something like the following:

margin-left

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