CSS: fixed to bottom and centered

I need my footer to be fixed to the bottom of the page and to center it. The contents of the footer may change at all time so I can't just center it via margin-left: xxpx; margin-right: xxpx;

The problem is that for some reason this doesn't work:

#whatever {
  position: fixed;
  bottom: 0px;
  margin-right: auto;
  margin-left: auto;
}

I crawled the web and found nothing. I tried making a container div and nada. I tried other combinations and gurnisht. How can I make this happen?

Thanks

You should use a sticky footer solution such as this one :

* {
	margin: 0;
}
html, body {
	height: 100%;
}
.wrapper {
	min-height: 100%;
	height: auto !important;
	height: 100%;
	margin: 0 auto -142px; /* the bottom margin is the negative value of the footer's height */
}
.footer, .push {
	height: 142px; /* .push must be the same height as .footer */
}

There are others like this;

* {margin:0;padding:0;} 

/* must declare 0 margins on everything, also for main layout components use padding, not 
vertical margins (top and bottom) to add spacing, else those margins get added to total height 
and your footer gets pushed down a bit more, creating vertical scroll bars in the browser */

html, body, #wrap {height: 100%;}

body > #wrap {height: auto; min-height: 100%;}

#main {padding-bottom: 150px;}  /* must be same height as the footer */

#footer {position: relative;
	margin-top: -150px; /* negative value of footer height */
	height: 150px;
	clear:both;} 

/* CLEAR FIX*/
.clearfix:after {content: ".";
	display: block;
	height: 0;
	clear: both;
	visibility: hidden;}
.clearfix {display: inline-block;}
/* Hides from IE-mac \*/
* html .clearfix { height: 1%;}
.clearfix {display: block;}

with the html:

<div id="wrap">

	<div id="main" class="clearfix">

	</div>

</div>

<div id="footer">

</div>

revised code by Daniel Kanis:

just change the following lines in CSS

.problem {text-align:center}
.enclose {position:fixed;bottom:0px;width:100%;}

and in html:

<p class="enclose problem">
Your footer text here.
</p>

A jQuery solution

$(function(){
	$(window).resize(function(){
		placeFooter();
	});
	placeFooter();
	// hide it before it's positioned
	$('#footer').css('display','inline');
});

function placeFooter() {	
	var windHeight = $(window).height();
	var footerHeight = $('#footer').height();
	var offset = parseInt(windHeight) - parseInt(footerHeight);
	$('#footer').css('top',offset);
}

<div id='footer' style='position: fixed; display: none;'>I am a footer</div>

Sometimes it's easier to implement JS than to hack old CSS.

http://jsfiddle.net/gLhEZ/

The problem lies in position: static. Static means don't do anyting at all with the position. position: absolute is what you want. Centering the element is still tricky though. The following should work:

#whatever {
  position: absolute;
  bottom: 0px;
  margin-right: auto;
  margin-left: auto;
  left: 0px;
  right: 0px;
}

or

#whatever {
  position: absolute;
  bottom: 0px;
  margin-right: auto;
  margin-left: auto;
  left: 50%;
  transform: translate(-50%, 0);
}

But I recommend the first method. I used centering techniques from this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1776915/how-to-center-absolute-element-in-div

There are 2 potential issues that I see:

1 - IE has had trouble with position:fixed in the past. If you are using IE7+ with a valid doctype or a non-IE browser this isn't part of the problem

2 - You need to specify a width for the footer if you want the footer object to be centered. Otherwise it defaults to the full width of the page and the auto margin for the left and right get set to 0. If you want the footer bar to take up the width (like the StackOverflow notice bar) and center the text, then you need to add "text-align: center" to your definition.

I have encased the 'problem div in another div' lets call this div the enclose div... make the enclose div in css have a width of 100% and postion fixed with a bottom of 0... then insert the problem div into the enclose div this is how it would look

#problem {margin-right:auto;margin-left:auto; /*what ever other styles*/}
#enclose {position:fixed;bottom:0px;width:100%;}

then in html...

<div id="enclose">
    <div id="problem">
    <!--this is where the text/markup would go-->
    </div>
</div>

There ya go!
-Hypertextie

I ran into a problem where the typical position: fixed and bottom: 0 didn't work. Discovered a neat functionality with position: sticky. Note it's "relatively" new so it won't with IE/Edge 15 and earlier.

Here's an example for w3schools.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
div.sticky {
  position: sticky;
  bottom: 0;
  background-color: yellow;
  padding: 30px;
  font-size: 20px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>

<p>Lorem ipsum dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas nisl est,  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dlerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dlerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dlerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dlerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas  dolor nteger frinegestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas </p>

<div class="sticky">I will stick to the screen when you reach my scroll position</div>

</body>
</html>

Based on the comment from @Michael: > There is a better way to do this. Simply create the body with > position:relative and a padding the size of the footer + the space > between content and footer you want. Then just make a footer div with > an absolute and bottom:0.

I went digging for the explanation and it boils down to this:

• By default, absolute position of bottom:0px sets it to the bottom of the window...not the bottom of the page.
• Relative positioning an element resets the scope of its children's absolute position...so by setting the body to relative positioning, the absolute position of bottom:0px now truly reflects the bottom of the page.

More details at http://css-tricks.com/absolute-positioning-inside-relative-positioning/

here is an example using css grid.

html, body{
    height: 100%;
    width: 100%;
}
.container{
    height: 100%;
    display:grid;
    /*we divide the page into 3 parts*/
    grid-template-rows: 20px auto  30px;
    text-align: center;   /*this is to center the element*/ 
    
}

.container .footer{
    grid-row: 3;   /*the footer will occupy the last row*/
    display: inline-block;
    margin-top: -20px;
}

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css">
    <title>Document</title>
</head>
<body>
    <div class="container">
        <div class="header">

        </div>
        <div class="content">

        </div>
        <div class="footer">
            here is the footer
        </div>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

you can use css grid:a concrete example