Difference between static and relative positioning

Question

In CSS, what is the difference between static (default) positioning and relative positioning?

Answer 1

In answer to "why CSS would still implement position: static;" in one scenerio, using position:relative for a parent and position:absolute for the child limits the scaling width of the child. In a horizontal menu system, where you could have 'columns' of links, using 'width:auto' does not work with relative parents. In this case, changing it to 'static' will allow the width to be variable dependent on the content within.

I spent a good few hours wondering why I couldn't get my container to adjust based on the amount of content within it. Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Relative position is relative to the normal flow. The relative position of that element (with offsets) is relative to the position where that element would have been normally if not moved.

Answer 3

Matthew Abbott has a really good answer.

Absolute and relative positioned items obey top, left, right and bottom commands (offsets) where static positioned items do not.

Relatively positioned items move offsets from where they would normally be in the html.

Absolute positioned items move offsets from the document or the next relatively positioned element up the DOM tree.

Answer 4

Static : A STATIC positioned element is what are we get by DEFAULT (Normal positioning of objects).

Relative : Relative to it’s current position, but can be moved. Or A RELATIVE positioned element is positioned relative to ITSELF.

Answer 5

Position relative lets you use top/bottom/left/right for positioning. Static won't let you do this unless you use margin parameters. There's a difference between Top and margin-top.

You won't need to use static much as it's default

Answer 6

Static positioning is the default positioning model for elements. They are displayed in the page where they rendered as part of normal HTML flow. Statically positioned elements don't obey left, top, right and bottom rules:

Relative positioning allows you to specify a specific offset (left, top etc) which is relative to the element's normal position in HTML flow. So if I have a textbox inside a div I could apply relative positioning on the textbox to have it display at specific place relative to where it would normally be placed within the div:

There is also absolute positioning - whereby you specify the exact location of the element relative to the entire document, or the next relatively positioned element further up the element tree:

And when a position: relative is applied to a parent element in the hierarchy:

Note how our absolutely-position element is bound by the relatively-positioned element.

And lastly there is fixed. Fixed positioning restricts an element to a specific position in the viewport, which stays in place during scroll:

You may also observe the behaviour that fixed-positioned elements do not cause scroll because they are not considered to be bound by the viewport:

Whereas absolutely-positioned elements are still bound by the viewport and will cause scrolling:

..unless of course your parent element uses overflow: ? to determine the behaviour of the scroll (if any).

With absolute positioning and fixed positioning, the elements are taken out of HTML flow.