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position:relative

Default Positioning

One of the most important CSS webpage layout concepts to understand is how to position webpage elements. Every element on a webpage, be it an image, a drop-down list, or just a paragraph of text, is actually a rectangular box, referred to as an element. When a Web browser loads an html file, it parses the html code from left-to-right top-to-bottom, just as we would read it and, by default, it renders the webpage, by placing elements on the webpage from left-to-right and from top-to-bottom. You can think of this as the webpage elements as "flowing" into position. As the elements flow onto the webpage, they line themselves up along a "baseline".

Webpage elements that flow into position from left-to-right are called inline elements. If there isn't enough room to the right to place an element, the browser places it on the next line. Certain elements, like paragraphs <p>, divisions <div>, and horizontal rules <hr />, called block elements, do not normally flow on the webpage from left-to-right. Block elements, by default, start on a new line, causes the next element in the flow to start a new line.

The style rule position is used to override this default behavior. The value of the position element may be set to relative, absolute, or fixed. In this article, I'll describe the effect of setting the style rule position: relative.

Shown below is the code for a webpage containing three span elements and how they would be rendered by default in the browser.

<html>
<head>

<style type="text/css">
.myBox
{
background-color:crimson;
border-style:solid;
border-width:1px;
padding:4px;
}
</style>

</head>
<body>

<span class="myBox">Element 1</span>
<span class="myBox">Element 2</span>
<span class="myBox">Element 3</span>

</body>
</html>

Normal inline flow

Relative Positioning

When you specify an element's position:relative you can relocate the element relative to where it would be located in the normal flow. You can use the left and⁄or top property to offset the element from where it would be located in the normal flow.

Shown below is the code with the CSS rule "position:relative" specified and the left property set to 20 pixels and the top property set to 20 pixels.

<html>
<head>

<style type="text/css">
.myBox
{
background-color:crimson;
border-style:solid;
border-width:1px;
padding:4px;
width:80px;
}
#myRel
{
position:relative;
left:20px;
top:20px;
background-color:crimson;
border-style:solid;
border-width:1px;
padding:4px;
width:80px;
}
</style>

</head>
<body>

<span class="myBox">Element 1</span>
<span id="myRel">Element 2</span>
<span class="myBox">Element 3</span>

</body>
</html>

Relative Positioning

Note that Element 2 is relative positioned 20 pixels to the right and 20 pixels down from where it would be located in the normal flow.

Note that the values of left and top are offsets relative to where the element would normally appear, NOT offsets with respect to another element. Other elements are not affected by the offsets, so the relative positioned element could overlap elements that are in normal flow.

More CSS Quick Reference:
• Set the Background Properties
• Grouped Selectors
• Set the Border Width
• Set Text Justification
• Set List Bullets Position
• Use an External Style Sheet
• Specifying Color
• How to Define and Apply a Style Class
• Set an Element's Margin
• Set the Line Spacing

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