Positioning

• The position property is used to indicate that an element is explicitly positioned
• The possibilities are static, relative, absolute, fixed, sticky (and inherit)

Static

• When the position property is omitted, the browser uses position: static as the default value
• Open https://www.w3.org/TR/css-values/
  • Select, within DevTools, a random paragraph on the page
  • Go to the Styles tab, and make sure the Computed Styles sidebar is shown (or go directly to the Computed tab)
  • Check the Show all checkbox and filter on position to find the default positioning of that paragraph

Relative

• position: relative moves an element relative to the original spot in the static flow
  • Use the top/bottom and/or left/right properties to move the element
    (You don't see any movement if top/bottom and left/right is omitted!)
• A relatively positioned element preserves its space: the spot in the static flow is kept open

Interactive demo

• Open position_relative.html and experiment with the different settings

Use cases

• position: relative is mainly used in conjunction with absolutely positioned elements (see further on)
  • The left/right and top/bottom properties can be omitted in combination with absolute positioning

Absolute

• position: absolute moves an element to a specific spot on the page
  • Use the top/bottom and/or left/right properties to position the element
• An absolutely positioned element is positioned relative to its closest (relatively) positioned ancestor!
  • If none of its ancestors are positioned, the element is positioned relative to the body tag
• An absolutely positioned element is removed completely from the normal flow: the adjacent sibling elements occupy its space

Interactive demo

• Open position_absolute.html and experiment with the different settings

REMARK

By setting the position of a (block) element to absolute (or fixed, see below), its width and height are set to auto and, thus, based on its content. Depending on your use case, you might have to adjust the width and/or height of the absolutely positioned element (in px, % of parent width/height, vw/vh, ...).

Use cases

• Place logo/watermark on top of another element
• Place an overlay on top of images, e.g. Flickr
• Place an overlay on top of the body tag, e.g. Lightbox

Fixed

• An element with position: fixed is always positioned relative to the viewport
  • This means that it always stays at the same place, even if the page is scrolled
  • Use the top/bottom and/or left/right properties to position the element
• A fixed element does not leave a gap in the page where it would normally have been located

Interactive demo

• Open position_fixed.html and experiment with the different settings

Use cases

• Fixed navbar always on top of the page, e.g. Stack Overflow
• Fixed sidenav on the left/right side of the page like on this course page/website
• 'back-to-top' button on the left/right bottom of the page like on this course page/website
• Fixed footer at the bottom of the page
• Fixed cookie/privacy overlay

Sticky

• position: sticky is a hybrid of static and fixed positioning
  • The element is positioned according to the normal static flow until it crosses a specified threshold value determined by top/bottom or left/right, e.g. by scrolling. At this point the element "sticks" in place, i.e., is positioned in a fixed way.
  • You must specify at least one of the top/bottom or left/right properties for sticky positioning to work

Interactive demo

• Open position_sticky.html and experiment with the different settings

Use cases

• A sticky navbar when the title is above the navigation, e.g. W3Schools CSS Tutorial
  • Note that the navbar on this page acts as a sticky navbar, although it is implemented with JavaScript (and not using position: sticky)

REMARK

• position: sticky is the only property from this list that is not fully supported (yet) on all major browsers
  • E.g. it's not supported on the thead and on the tr tag inside Chromium browsers

Emmet

EMMET instruction	result
pos:r^t50^l-100 + TAB	position: relative; top: 50px; left: -100px;
pos:a^t75^l75 + TAB	position: absolute; top: 75px; left: 75px;
pos:f^t40 + TAB	position: fixed; top: 40px;

Stacking order

• If you start working with position: relative, position: absolute, position: fixed or position: sticky, it can happen that elements are stacked on top of each other
• For elements that do not have position: static, you can control the stacking order via the z-index property
  • An element with a larger z-index is always in front of an element with a smaller z-index
  • Tip: use a negative z-index to move an element behind its parent element

Interactive demo

• Open z-index.html and experiment with the different settings