Does Vertical Align Work on Inline-Block Elements?

Vertical Align: A Flawed Concept for Inline-Blocks

While it's commonly claimed that vertical align applies effortlessly to inline and inline-block elements, this belief is often met with disappointment. In reality, vertical align has a specific purpose that renders it ineffective for inline-block elements.

Unlike text-align, which sets the horizontal alignment of text within its enclosing element, vertical align targets the vertical alignment of elements with respect to their enclosing line box, not their parent element. A line box refers to the rectangular space occupied by a line of text.

Consider the following example:

#wrapper {
border: 1px solid black;
width: 500px;
height: 500px;
}
#content {
border: 1px solid black;
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: middle;
}

HTML:

<div>
<p>In this case, applying vertical-align: middle to the inline-block element #content will have no effect because vertical align does not consider the vertical spacing within the containing block. It simply aligns the element within its own line box.</p>
<p>Grasping this fundamental property of vertical align will prevent future headaches and ensure accurate vertical positioning in your HTML and CSS code.</p>
</div>

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