CSS place-content Property

Posted in CSS Tutorial

Updated on Oct 07, 2024

By Mari Selvan

👁️ 19 - Views

⏳ 4 mins

💬 1 Comment

Photo Credit to CodeToFun

🙋 Introduction

The place-content property in CSS is a shorthand property used to align and distribute content within a container. It combines the functionality of align-content and justify-content properties into one.

This property is particularly useful for controlling the alignment of items along both the block and inline axes in a grid or flex container.

💡 Syntax

The place-content property can accept one or two values. When two values are provided, the first value applies to the block axis (vertical alignment), and the second value applies to the inline axis (horizontal alignment).

Syntax

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element {
  place-content: align-content justify-content;
}

align-content: Specifies the alignment of the content along the block (vertical) axis.
justify-content: Specifies the alignment of the content along the inline (horizontal) axis.

🎛️ Default Value

The default value of the place-content property is stretch stretch, which means that the content is stretched to fit both axes by default.

🏠 Property Values

Value	Description
start	Aligns the content to the start of the container along the respective axis.
end	Aligns the content to the end of the container along the respective axis.
center	Centers the content along the respective axis.
space-between	Distributes the content evenly with space between the items along the respective axis.
space-around	Distributes the content evenly with space around the items along the respective axis.
space-evenly	Distributes the content evenly with equal space around and between the items along the respective axis.
stretch	Stretches the content to fill the container along the respective axis (default value).

📄 Example

In this example, we align the content of a grid container to the center both vertically and horizontally.

index.html

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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  <title>CSS place-content Example</title>
  <style>
    .container {
      display: grid;
      height: 200px;
      place-content: center;
      border: 2px solid #333;
    }
    .item {
      background-color: #ff5733;
      color: #fff;
      padding: 20px;
      text-align: center;
    }
  </style>
</head>
<body>
  <h1>Grid Container with Centered Content</h1>
  <div class="container">
    <div class="item">Centered Item</div>
  </div>
</body>
</html>

Example with Different Values

In this example, we use place-content: space-between center; to distribute content evenly with space between items vertically and center align them horizontally.

index.html

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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  <title>CSS place-content Example</title>
  <style>
    .container {
      display: grid;
      height: 200px;
      place-content: space-between center;
      border: 2px solid #333;
    }
    .item {
      background-color: #33c1ff;
      color: #fff;
      padding: 20px;
      text-align: center;
    }
  </style>
</head>
<body>
  <h1>Grid Container with Space Between and Centered Content</h1>
  <div class="container">
    <div class="item">Item 1</div>
    <div class="item">Item 2</div>
  </div>
</body>
</html>

🖥️ Browser Compatibility

The place-content property is well-supported in modern browsers. However, always check the latest compatibility tables to ensure that it works as expected across different browsers and their versions.

🎉 Conclusion

The place-content property is a versatile tool for aligning and distributing content within a container.

By combining the capabilities of align-content and justify-content, it allows for easy and precise control over the layout of grid and flex items. Experiment with different values to achieve the desired alignment and distribution in your web projects.