How to align content of a div to the bottom?

Question

Say I have the following CSS and HTML code:

#header {
  height: 150px;
}

<div id="header">
  <h1>Header title</h1>
  Header content (one or multiple lines)
</div>

The header section is fixed height, but the header content may change. I would like to content of the header to be vertically aligned to the bottom of the header section, so the last line of text "sticks" to the bottom of the header section.

So if there is only one line of text it would be like:

-----------------------------
| Header title
|
|
|
| header content (resulting in one line)
-----------------------------

And if there were three lines:

-----------------------------
| Header title
|
| header content (which is so
| much stuff that it perfectly
| spans over three lines)
-----------------------------

How can this be done in CSS?

Answer 1

Relative+absolute positioning is your best bet:

#header {
  position: relative;
  min-height: 150px;
}

#header-content {
  position: absolute;
  bottom: 0;
  left: 0;
}

#header, #header * {
  background: rgba(40, 40, 100, 0.25);
}

<div id="header">
  <h1>Title</h1>
  <div id="header-content">Some content</div>
</div>

But you may run into issues with that. When I tried it I had problems with dropdown menus appearing below the content. It's just not pretty.

Honestly, for vertical centering issues and, well, any vertical alignment issues with the items aren't fixed height, it's easier just to use tables.

Example: Can you do this HTML layout without using tables?

Answer 2

Inline or inline-block elements can be aligned to the bottom of block level elements if the line-height of the parent/block element is greater than that of the inline element.*

markup:

<h1 class="alignBtm"><span>I'm at the bottom</span></h1>

css:

h1.alignBtm {
  line-height: 3em;
}
h1.alignBtm span {
  line-height: 1.2em;
  vertical-align: bottom;
}

*make sure you're in standards mode

Answer 3

If you're not worried about legacy browsers use a flexbox.

The parent element needs its display type set to flex

div.parent {
  display: flex;
  height: 100%;
}

Then you set the child element's align-self to flex-end.

span.child {
  display: inline-block;
  align-self: flex-end;
}

Here's the resource I used to learn: http://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/

Answer 4

Here is another solution using flexbox but without using flex-end for bottom alignment. The idea is to set margin-bottom on h1 to auto to push the remaining content to the bottom:

#header {
  height: 350px;
  display:flex;
  flex-direction:column;
  border:1px solid;
}

#header h1 {
 margin-bottom:auto;
}

<div id="header">
  <h1>Header title</h1>
  Header content (one or multiple lines) Header content (one or multiple lines)Header content (one or multiple lines) Header content (one or multiple lines)
</div>

We can also do the same with margin-top:auto on the text but in this case we need to wrap it inside a div or span:

#header {
  height: 350px;
  display:flex;
  flex-direction:column;
  border:1px solid;
}

#header span {
 margin-top:auto;
}

<div id="header">
  <h1>Header title</h1>
  <span>Header content (one or multiple lines)</span>
</div>

Answer 5

You can simply achieved flex

header {
  border: 1px solid blue;
  height: 150px;
  display: flex;                   /* defines flexbox */
  flex-direction: column;          /* top to bottom */
  justify-content: space-between;  /* first item at start, last at end */
}
h1 {
  margin: 0;
}

<header>
  <h1>Header title</h1>
  Some text aligns to the bottom
</header>

Answer 6

Use CSS positioning.

/* creates a new stacking context on the header */
#header {
  position: relative;
}

/* positions header-content at the bottom of header's context */
#header-content {
  position: absolute;
  bottom: 0;
}

As cletus noted, you need identify the header-content to make this work.

<span id="header-content">some header content</span> 

<div style="height:100%; position:relative;">                                              
    <div style="height:10%; position:absolute; bottom:0px;">bottom</div>
</div>