How to left align textareas within different divs?

Question

I want to left align the textareas within two different divs.

Below is what have tried, but it doesn't work.

.credentials {
  margin-top: -5px;
  background-color: black;
}
label {
  margin-left: 20px;
  color: white;
  vertical-align: middle;
}
textarea {
  vertical-align: middle;
  height: 25px;
  margin-top: 10px;
  margin-left: 30px;
}
.username {
  height: 50px;
}

<div class="credentials">
  <div class="username">
    <label>Username:</label>
    <textarea></textarea>
  </div>
  <div class="key">
    <label>Activation key:</label>
    <textarea></textarea>
  </div>
</div>

It outputs the following result:

Stickers · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-20T18:06:28.870

Try this CSS table layout (no markup changes). Set the container div as table, and two inner divs as table-row, and label + textarea as table-cell, with some other CSS adjustments, see the comments in the code snippet.

.credentials {
  display: table;
  width: 100%;
  background: black;
  border-collapse: separate;
  border-spacing: 10px; /*for spacing*/
}
.username, .key {
  display: table-row;
}
label, textarea {
  display: table-cell;
  vertical-align: middle; /*or top/bottom*/
}
label {
  width: 1%; /*small value*/
  white-space: nowrap; /*prevent wrapping*/
  color: white;
}

<div class="credentials">
  <div class="username">
    <label>Username:</label>
    <textarea></textarea>
  </div>
  <div class="key">
    <label>Activation key:</label>
    <textarea></textarea>
  </div>
</div>

Edit: as one of the comment below pointed out using <input> elements rather than <textarea>, and I think that makes sense. See the updated code snippet.

.credentials {
  display: table;
  width: 100%;
  background: black;
  border-collapse: separate;
  border-spacing: 10px; /*for spacing*/
}
.credentials .username,
.credentials .key {
  display: table-row;
}
.credentials label,
.credentials input[type="text"],
.credentials input[type="password"]{
  display: table-cell;
  vertical-align: middle;
  padding: 4px;
}
.credentials label {
  width: 1%; /*small value*/
  white-space: nowrap; /*prevent wrapping*/
  color: white;
}

<div class="credentials">
  <div class="username">
    <label>Username:</label>
    <input type="text">
  </div>
  <div class="key">
    <label>Activation key:</label>
    <input type="password">
  </div>
</div>

@Eutherpy don't use `` for inputs like username/password `<textarea>` is for comments/etc — Jordan Davis, Jan 13 '16 at 19:41

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

There is more than one way to achieve this, answer of Pangloss is nice but i like to suggest something different also without touching the code.

I would never use textarea for this kind of work

calc is a relative new thing check your search engine for more information

If you don't know the < selector in css i suggest to look over here

.credentials {
  background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
  color: rgb(255, 255, 255);
  /*fallback color if nothing is found*/
}
.credentials > div > label {
  display: inline-block;
  min-width: 150px;
  /*maximum width of label*/
  text-align: right;
  /*style*/
  padding: 5px;
  /*style*/
}
/*extra to make sure it never flip under label and stay inside view*/

.credentials > div > textarea {
  max-width: calc(100% - (150px + 5px + 5px + 8px + 8px + 1px + 1px));
  /* min-width + padding-left + padding-right + margin-left + margin-right + border-left + border right OR just 178px */
}

<div class="credentials">
  <div class="username">
    <label>Username:</label>
    <textarea></textarea>
  </div>
  <div class="key">
    <label>Activation key:</label>
    <textarea></textarea>
  </div>
</div>

How to left align textareas within different divs?

2 Answers2