How to horizontally center absolute positioned container with CSS

Find out in this short guide, how to horizontally center a absolute positioned container with CSS.

Note: We have a card with all CSS centering options. You probably want to head over there and get an overview over what techniques are available for your use case and browser requirements.

Horizontally centering a static element in CSS is normally handled by setting the left and right margins to auto, for example:

Copy// SASS
$container_width: 100px
.container
  width: $container_width
  margin: 0 auto

However, this won’t work on an absolutely positioned element. But there is a solution:

Copy// SASS
$container_width: 100px
.container
  width: $container_width
  position: absolute
  left: 50%
  margin-left: floor($container_width / 2) * -1