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>

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.

Grasping this fundamental property of vertical align will prevent future headaches and ensure accurate vertical positioning in your HTML and CSS code.

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