CSS Flex Container
Parent Element (Container)
Like we specified in the previous chapter, this is a flex container (the blue area) with three flex items:
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The flex container becomes flexible by setting the display property to flex:
The flex container properties are:
The flex-direction Property
The flex-direction property defines in which direction the container wants to stack the flex items.
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Example
The column value stacks the flex items vertically (from top to bottom):
.flex-container {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
}
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Example
The column-reverse value stacks the flex items vertically (but from bottom to top):
.flex-container {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column-reverse;
}
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Example
The row value stacks the flex items horizontally (from left to right):
.flex-container {
display: flex;
flex-direction: row;
}
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Example
The row-reverse value stacks the flex items horizontally (but from right to left):
.flex-container {
display: flex;
flex-direction: row-reverse;
}
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The flex-wrap Property
The flex-wrap property specifies whether the flex items should wrap or not.
The examples below have 12 flex items, to better demonstrate the flex-wrap property.
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Example
The wrap value specifies that the flex items will wrap if necessary:
.flex-container {
display: flex;
flex-wrap: wrap;
}
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Example
The nowrap value specifies that the flex items will not wrap (this is default):
.flex-container {
display: flex;
flex-wrap: nowrap;
}
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Example
The wrap-reverse value specifies that the flexible items will wrap if necessary, in reverse order:
.flex-container {
display: flex;
flex-wrap: wrap-reverse;
}
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The flex-flow Property
The flex-flow property is a shorthand property for setting both the flex-direction and flex-wrap properties.
The justify-content Property
The justify-content property is used to align the flex items:
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Example
The center value aligns the flex items at the center of the container:
.flex-container {
display: flex;
justify-content: center;
}
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Example
The flex-start value aligns the flex items at the beginning of the container (this is default):
.flex-container {
display: flex;
justify-content: flex-start;
}
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Example
The flex-end value aligns the flex items at the end of the container:
.flex-container {
display: flex;
justify-content: flex-end;
}
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Example
The space-around value displays the flex items with space before, between, and after the lines:
.flex-container {
display: flex;
justify-content: space-around;
}
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Example
The space-between value displays the flex items with space between the lines:
.flex-container {
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between;
}
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The align-items Property
The align-items property is used to align the flex items.
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In these examples we use a 200 pixels high container, to better demonstrate the align-items property.
Example
The center value aligns the flex items in the middle of the container:
.flex-container {
display: flex;
height: 200px;
align-items: center;
}
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Example
The flex-start value aligns the flex items at the top of the container:
.flex-container {
display: flex;
height: 200px;
align-items: flex-start;
}
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Example
The flex-end value aligns the flex items at the bottom of the container:
.flex-container {
display: flex;
height: 200px;
align-items: flex-end;
}
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Example
The stretch value stretches the flex items to fill the container (this is default):
.flex-container {
display: flex;
height: 200px;
align-items: stretch;
}
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Example
The baseline value aligns the flex items such as their baselines aligns:
.flex-container {
display: flex;
height: 200px;
align-items: baseline;
}
Note: the example uses different font-size to demonstrate that the items gets aligned by the text baseline:
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The align-content Property
The align-content property is used to align the flex lines.
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In these examples we use a 600 pixels high container, with the flex-wrap property set to wrap, to better demonstrate the align-content property.
Example
The space-between value displays the flex lines with equal space between them:
.flex-container {
display: flex;
height: 600px;
flex-wrap: wrap;
align-content: space-between;
}
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Example
The space-around value displays the flex lines with space before, between, and after them:
.flex-container {
display: flex;
height: 600px;
flex-wrap: wrap;
align-content: space-around;
}
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Example
The stretch value stretches the flex lines to take up the remaining space (this is default):
.flex-container {
display: flex;
height: 600px;
flex-wrap: wrap;
align-content: stretch;
}
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Example
The center value displays display the flex lines in the middle of the container:
.flex-container {
display: flex;
height: 600px;
flex-wrap: wrap;
align-content: center;
}
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Example
The flex-start value displays the flex lines at the start of the container:
.flex-container {
display: flex;
height: 600px;
flex-wrap: wrap;
align-content: flex-start;
}
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Example
The flex-end value displays the flex lines at the end of the container:
.flex-container {
display: flex;
height: 600px;
flex-wrap: wrap;
align-content: flex-end;
}
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Perfect Centering
In the following example we will solve a very common style problem: perfect centering.
SOLUTION: Set both the justify-content and align-items properties to center, and the flex item will be perfectly centered:
Example
.flex-container {
display: flex;
height: 300px;
justify-content: center;
align-items: center;
}
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The CSS Flexbox Container Properties
The following table lists all the CSS Flexbox Container properties:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| align-content | Modifies the behavior of the flex-wrap property. It is similar to align-items, but instead of aligning flex items, it aligns flex lines |
| align-items | Vertically aligns the flex items when the items do not use all available space on the cross-axis |
| display | Specifies the type of box used for an HTML element |
| flex-direction | Specifies the direction of the flexible items inside a flex container |
| flex-flow | A shorthand property for flex-direction and flex-wrap |
| flex-wrap | Specifies whether the flex items should wrap or not, if there is not enough room for them on one flex line |
| justify-content | Horizontally aligns the flex items when the items do not use all available space on the main-axis |
