css label width not taking effect

Question

I have a generic form, which I'd like to style to align the labels and the input fields. For some reason when I give a width to the label selector, nothing happens:

HTML:

<form id="report-upload-form" method="POST" action="" enctype="multipart/form-data">
    <p>
        <label for="id_title">Title:</label> 
        <input id="id_title" type="text" class="input-text" name="title"></p>
    <p>
        <label for="id_description">Description:</label> 
        <textarea id="id_description" rows="10" cols="40" name="description"></textarea></p>
    <p>
        <label for="id_report">Upload Report:</label> 
        <input id="id_report" type="file" class="input-file" name="report">
    </p>
</form>

CSS:

#report-upload-form {
    background-color: #316091;
    color: #ddeff1;
    font-weight:bold;
    margin: 23px auto 0 auto;
    border-radius:10px;
    width: 650px;
    box-shadow:  0 0 2px 2px #d9d9d9;
}

#report-upload-form label {
    padding-left:26px;
    width:125px;
    text-transform: uppercase;
}

#report-upload-form input[type=text], 
#report-upload-form input[type=file],
#report-upload-form textarea {
    width: 305px;
}

Output:

jsFiddle

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Do display: inline-block:

#report-upload-form label {
    padding-left:26px;
    width:125px;
    text-transform: uppercase;
    display:inline-block
}

http://jsfiddle.net/aqMN4/

Answer 2

Use display: inline-block;

Explanation:

The label is an inline element, meaning it is only as big as it needs to be.

Set the display property to either inline-block or block in order for the width property to take effect.

Example:

#report-upload-form {
    background-color: #316091;
    color: #ddeff1;
    font-weight: bold;
    margin: 23px auto 0 auto;
    border-radius: 10px;
    width: 650px;
    box-shadow: 0 0 2px 2px #d9d9d9;

}

#report-upload-form label {
    padding-left: 26px;
    width: 125px;
    text-transform: uppercase;
    display: inline-block;
}

#report-upload-form input[type=text], 
#report-upload-form input[type=file],
#report-upload-form textarea {
    width: 305px;
}

<form id="report-upload-form" method="POST" action="" enctype="multipart/form-data">
    <p><label for="id_title">Title:</label> <input id="id_title" type="text" class="input-text" name="title"></p>
    <p><label for="id_description">Description:</label> <textarea id="id_description" rows="10" cols="40" name="description"></textarea></p>
    <p><label for="id_report">Upload Report:</label> <input id="id_report" type="file" class="input-file" name="report"></p>
</form>

Answer 3

I believe labels are inline, and so they don't take a width. Maybe try using "display: block" and going from there.

Answer 4

Make it a block first, then float left to stop pushing the next block in to a new line.

#report-upload-form label {
                           padding-left:26px;
                           width:125px;
                           text-transform: uppercase;
                           display:block;
                           float:left
}

Answer 5

give the style

display:inline-block;

hope this will help'

Answer 6

label's default display mode is inline, which means it automatically sizes itself to it's content. To set a width you'll need to set display:block and then do some faffing to get it positioned correctly (probably involving float)

Answer 7

   label
    {
    display: inline-block;
    }

will give you the flexibility to change the width of the labels and custom align the form. cheers