CSS : h-centering a div with of unspecified width

Hello,

I am aware that the correct way to center a block-level element is to
set the left and right margins to auto.
However, this seems to only if the element to be centered has a width
explicitly specified.

Then, how can I center a div element that has no specified width?

As I understand it, the problem is that the default value for width is
100% and so the computed value for the "auto" left and rights margins is
zero.

Is there a way to minimize the width of a div (so that it fits exactly
its content) and make the horizontal centering work?

I'd greatly appreciate your expertise on this point!

Arnost

Arnost Sobota <sabotage (AT) minefi (DOT) gouv.fr> wrote:

Is there a way to minimize the width of a div (so that it fits exactly
its content) and make the horizontal centering work?

2 ways:

1) Setting the display property to inline-block or inline-table (browser
support varies, search the archives), and then specify text-align:center
on the containing block.

2) Setting the display property to table invokes the familiar shrink to
fit table model, caveat: IE doesn't support the CSS table model.

--
Spartanicus