Sep 13, 2023 Author - Sai gowtham

React - Center a component horizontally and vertically

react2min read

In this tutorial, we are going to learn about how to center a component horizontally and vertically in React with the help of examples.

Consider, we have the following component in our react app:

import React from 'react';

function Home(){
    return (
        <div className="center">
          <h1>Home Component</h1>
        </div>
    )
}

export default Home;

To center a component horizontally and vertically in React, add the display:flex, justify-content: center and align-items: center to the react component CSS class.

‘justify-content: center’ centers the component horizontally.

‘align-items: center’ centers the component vertically.

Here is an example:

import React from 'react';

function Home(){
    return (
        <div className="center">
           <h1>Home Component</h1>
        </div>
    )
}

export default Home;

.center{
    display: flex;
    justify-content: center;
    align-items: center;
    height: 100vh;
}

or we can add it inline using the style object in React.

import React from 'react';

function Home(){
    return (
        <div style={{
            display: 'flex',
            justifyContent: 'center',
            alignItems: 'center',
            height: '100vh'
        }}>
           <h1>Home Component</h1>
        </div>
    )
}

export default Home;

Centering using absolute position

We can use the absolute positioning in react.js to center the component horizontally and vertically.

Here is an example:

import React from 'react';

function Home(){
    return (
        <div style={{
               position: 'absolute',
               left: '50%',
               top: '50%',
               transform: 'translate(-50%, -50%)'
        }}>
          Home Component
        </div>
    )
}

export default Home;

Here we added position:absolute to the component div element, so the element breaks out from the normal document flow and is positioned to its relative parent (eg: body or parent component).
The left:50% moves the element 50% right from its position.
The top:50% moves the element 50% down from its position.
The translate(-50%, -50%) moves the element 50% up, 50% left of it’s position.

Creating the center component

We can also create a reusable center component in React, so we can reuse it in our app instead of adding the styles every time to the component.

Example:

import React from 'react';

function Center(props){
    return (
        <div style={{
            display: 'flex',
            justifyContent: 'center',
            alignItems: 'center',
            height: '100vh'
        }}>
           {props.children}
        </div>
    )
}

export default Center;

Using the Center component:

import React from 'react';
import Center from './center.js'

function Home(){
    return (
        <div>
           <Center>
             <h1>Home Component</h1>
           </Center>
        </div>
    )
}

export default Home;