The total width of the child elements within a ul surpasses the sum of their individual widths

Answered

Lately, I feel like I'm starting to lose my mind... I am currently working on setting up a basic top navigation that is centered in the header with margin-0-auto. It consists of five <li> elements, each with a width of 200px. Simple math tells me that adds up to 1000px in total width. However, the parent <ul> element needs to be set at 1016px width to contain all the children. I can't figure out why this discrepancy exists, especially since I have removed all margins and paddings using a CSS reset. Here's the code snippet:

HTML

<div id="header-wrapper">
    <div id="header">
            <ul id="head-menu">
                <li class="head-menu-item"><a href="" class="head-menu-item-link">Navlink</a></li>
                <li class="head-menu-item"><a href="" class="head-menu-item-link">Navlink</a></li>
                <li class="head-menu-item"><a href="" class="head-menu-item-link">Navlink</a></li>
                <li class="head-menu-item"><a href="" class="head-menu-item-link">Navlink</a></li>
                <li class="head-menu-item"><a href="" class="head-menu-item-link">Navlink</a></li>
            </ul>
    </div>
</div>

CSS

#header-wrapper         { width: 100%; height: 56px; position: relative }
#header                 { width: 100%; height: 56px; background: #111; position: absolute; }
#head-menu              { width: calc(5*200px); margin: 0 auto;}
.head-menu-item         { display: inline-block }
.head-menu-item-link    { display: inline-block; padding: 20px; width: calc(200px - 40px); text-align: center }

Update 29.09.13

In case anyone else is facing the same issue, instead of removing white spaces or adjusting negative left-margins, I found an easy solution:

</li><li class="head-menu-item"><a href="" class="head-menu-item-link">Navlink</a>
</li><li class="head-menu-item"><a href="" class="head-menu-item-link">Navlink</a>

This method worked smoothly without making major changes to the code while maintaining its cleanliness.

htmlcssmenuheadernavigation

Answer №1

The issue arises when inline elements have additional space between them due to empty spaces in your HTML (even a simple line-break). Here is the solution provided: jsfiddle

HTML

<div id="header-wrapper">
    <div id="header">
        <ul id="head-menu">
            <li class="head-menu-item"><a href="" class="head-menu-item-link">Navlink</a>
            </li><!--
            --><li class="head-menu-item"><a href="" class="head-menu-item-link">Navlink</a>
            </li><!--
            --><li class="head-menu-item"><a href="" class="head-menu-item-link">Navlink</a>
            </li><!--
            --><li class="head-menu-item"><a href="" class="head-menu-item-link">Navlink</a>
            </li><!--
            --><li class="head-menu-item"><a href="" class="head-menu-item-link">Navlink</a>
            </li>
        </ul>
    </div> </div>

Answer №2

When using display:inline-block, spaces are being added between the li elements, resulting in visible white space within the HTML. This effect becomes more apparent when a background color is applied to the li elements.

Answer №3

If you're aiming for a clean HTML appearance, consider applying a negative margin to your display:inline-block elements to eliminate gaps in the code. This method works best for layouts that remain relatively static and are resistant to changes. It's a workaround for those hesitant to alter spacing or insert comments.

Answer №4

Unfortunately, I lack the necessary 'reputation' to leave a comment, but I wanted to echo the sentiments shared by Vinícius Moraes regarding the importance of WHITE SPACES in your code...

<div id="foo"></div>
<div id="bar"></div>
<div id="thing"></div>

By separating these elements onto different lines with coded white spaces, you can achieve a noticeable impact. On the other hand, placing them altogether like this...

<div id="foo"></div><div id="bar"></div><div id="thing"></div>

may not produce the desired result, as I discovered after struggling for hours to understand why my three divs were not aligning properly when resized using JQuery. Many thanks to Vinícius Moraes for highlighting this common error.

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