[html] Bootstrap: How to center align content inside column?

A simple use case scenario is to use an image, or any other content inside a Bootstrap column. And often this content needs to be horizontally centered.

<div class="container">
    <div class="row">
        <div class="col-sm-4 col-md-4 col-lg-4 text-center">
            <img class="img-responsive" src="img/some-image.png" title="this image needs to be centered">
        </div>
        <div class="col-sm-8 col-md-8 col-lg-8">
            some content not important at this moment
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

In version 3.1.0 adding class text-center centered the image inside column. But I was forced to go to version 3.3.4 in order to fix some other issues and this behavior (text-center) is now broken. I am left with the problem how to center an image or other content inside a column. I would like to avoid having to add class to contained elements as this is error prone or requires another containing div.

You can do this by adding a div i.e. centerBlock. And give this property in CSS to center the image or any content. Here is the code:

<div class="container">
    <div class="row">
        <div class="col-sm-4 col-md-4 col-lg-4">
            <div class="centerBlock">
                <img class="img-responsive" src="img/some-image.png" title="This image needs to be centered">
            </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-sm-8 col-md-8 col-lg-8">
            Some content not important at this moment
        </div>
    </div>
</div>


// CSS

.centerBlock {
  display: table;
  margin: auto;
}

Want to center an image? Very easy, Bootstrap comes with two classes, .center-block and text-center.

Use the former in the case of your image being a BLOCK element, for example, adding img-responsive class to your img makes the img a block element. You should know this if you know how to navigate in the web console and see applied styles to an element.

Don't want to use a class? No problem, here is the CSS bootstrap uses. You can make a custom class or write a CSS rule for the element to match the Bootstrap class.

 // In case you're dealing with a block element apply this to the element itself 
.center-block {
   margin-left:auto;
   margin-right:auto;
   display:block;
}

// In case you're dealing with a inline element apply this to the parent 
.text-center {
   text-align:center
}