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CSS CSS Layout Basics Positioning Page Content How Absolute Positioning Works

Paul M
Paul M
16,370 Points

Using Absolute Positioning With Smaller Screens

I noticed some changes when I resized the page, why does this happen?

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,269 Points

It would help if you share your code (be sure to blockquote it properly). Even better, make a snapshot of your workspace and post the link to it here.

1 Answer

The position property relies on a “positioning context” to know where to place your absolutely positioned elements.

The default for an absolutely positioned item will be the browser window viewport, unless you tell it otherwise.

In this example, the <li> with the class “ice cream” has been absolutely positioned using pixel units. Pixel units are immutable and will not change no matter how the viewport width or height changes.

The <li> with the class “tea” was absolutely positioned, but it used relative units to place itself from the right, from the bottom — using em and percentage respectively. Relative units scale. Therefore, as the size of the browser window changes, so does the placement of the element change along with it.