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CSS CSS Basics (2014) Basic Layout Floats

rajbee
rajbee
6,657 Points
Posted by rajbee
rajbee
6,657 Points

floating - positioning of the second div

At 3:50, the second div/column is floated to the right. Why does the footer go below the first div and the second column is halfway into the footer ?

1 Answer

luis betancourt
luis betancourt
1,236 Points
luis betancourt
luis betancourt
1,236 Points

That happens because when you float something to the right or left. it causes that floated element to be moved left or right, which is what you want but the browser starts treating that floated element as if it's height was 0px.

to solve this issue you add a clearfix class to the parent that holds the floated div's. You can see that the css is targeting the parent's after pseudo element. This is an invisible element that every element has after it's closing tag.

.clearfix:after {
  content: "";
  display: table;
  clear: both;
}

<div class="clearfix">
      <div class="float-right">Float to the right</div>
      <div class="float-left">Float to the left</div>
</div>
Aie Wan
Aie Wan
4,803 Points
Aie Wan
Aie Wan
4,803 Points

Great explanation! Thanks!