Css what is the difference between relative and absolute positioning

Like Join the DZone community and get the full member experience. Join For Free. Static - this is the default value, all elements are in order as they appear in the document. Relative - the element is positioned relative to its normal position. Absolute - the element is positioned absolutely to its first positioned parent. Fixed - the element is positioned related to the browser window. Sticky - the element is positioned based on the user's scroll position.

What Is Relative Positioning? After this brief explanation, we need to back it up, by showing an example. Get certified by completing a course today! If you want to report an error, or if you want to make a suggestion, do not hesitate to send us an e-mail:.

Margins Margin Collapse. Float Clear Float Examples. Navbar Vertical Navbar Horizontal Navbar. Shadow Effects Box Shadow. Example div. Example Bottom Left. Report Error. Your message has been sent to W3Schools. But, if it was an second old question would it have made a difference? Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Hope that clarifies things a bit.

Arion Krause 3 3 silver badges 6 6 bronze badges. AgentConundrum AgentConundrum Nicholas K Premraj Premraj With CSS positioning, you can place an element exactly where you want it on your page. Absolute Position An absolute position element is positioned relative to the first parent element that has a position other than static.

Relative Position A relative positioned element is positioned relative to its normal position. Kick Buttowski 6, 12 12 gold badges 34 34 silver badges 57 57 bronze badges. GowriShankar GowriShankar 1, 16 16 silver badges 30 30 bronze badges. Look at the example I create for you to show the differences Alireza Alireza Damien-Wright Damien-Wright 6, 4 4 gold badges 26 26 silver badges 23 23 bronze badges.

Relative: An element with position: relative; is positioned relative to its normal position. Absolute: An element with position: absolute; allows you to place any element exactly where you want it to be.

It gets removed from the normal flow of elements on the page. Temani Afif k 15 15 gold badges silver badges bronze badges. Pransh Tiwari Pransh Tiwari 3, 1 1 gold badge 29 29 silver badges 38 38 bronze badges. For example: position:relative; leftpx; Might make the left side of the text disappear if it was within 20px to the left edge of the screen. Charles Zink Charles Zink 3, 4 4 gold badges 20 20 silver badges 24 24 bronze badges. I am new to web designing and I really get confused on the differences of the three.

This post makes it more clearer for my understanding. Now that you are picturing every single page element as a block of pixels, we can talk about how positioning is used to get the blocks of pixels exactly where you want them to go.

OK, very obvious answer here The element is positioned nearest to the first relatively or absolutely positioned parent element. So position:relative has its limitations. The position CSS property sets how an element is positioned in a document.

The top, right, bottom, and left properties determine the final location of positioned elements. In other words, it's anything except static.