Text padding is not working in floated div

Question

Okay so I have a floated div, within it I have a unorganised list.

<div class="navigation-nav" id="navigation-nav">
  <ul class="navigation-list">
    <li class="navigation-item"><a class="navigation-link current" href="#">Home</a></li>
    <li class="navigation-item"><a class="navigation-link" href="#about">About</a></li>
    <li class="navigation-item"><a class="navigation-link" href="projects.html">Projects</a></li>
    <li class="navigation-item"><a class="navigation-link" href="#collage">Collage</a></li>
  </ul>
</div>

Now if I try to change the padding or margin on either navigation-item or navigation-link it will add either a padding (which is what I want) or a margin only the x-axis, so left or right. I want to add horizontal padding. I have tried adding in a wrapper - like this:

<div class="navigation-nav" id="navigation-nav">
  <div class="navigation-wrapper">
    <ul class="navigation-list">
      <li class="navigation-item"><a class="navigation-link current" href="#">Home</a></li>
      <li class="navigation-item"><a class="navigation-link" href="#about">About</a></li>
      <li class="navigation-item"><a class="navigation-link" href="projects.html">Projects</a></li>
      <li class="navigation-item"><a class="navigation-link" href="#collage">Collage</a></li>
    </ul>
  </div>
</div>

But that did not work. Here is all the CSS:

    .navigation-nav {
    right: 0;
    float: right;
    width: 50%;
    text-align: right;
}

.navigation-wrapper {
    float: none;
    overflow: visible;
}


.navigation-list {
    list-style: none;
    padding: 0;
    margin: 0;
    display: block;
}

.navigation-item {
    display: inline;
    padding: 1em;

}

Brent Stees Brent Stees · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-14T19:58:21

The main issue is that display: inline; eliminates your ability to properly adjust box model items: border, margin, padding. You can use display: inline-block; to get you what you want.

I took the liberty to do some cleanup. It is a matter of opinion, but my preference for best practice is to avoid too much markup when CSS targeting can handle finding the elements without much help...

HTML

<nav> // using HTML 5 semantic tag
  <ul>
    <li><a class="current" href="#">Home</a></li>
    <li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
    <li><a href="projects.html">Projects</a></li>
    <li><a href="#collage">Collage</a></li>
  </ul>
</nav>

CSS

body {
  margin: 0;
}

nav {
  float: right;
}

nav ul {
  list-style: none;
  padding: 0;
  margin: 0;
  display: block;
}

nav li {
  display: inline-block;
  margin: 0;
}

nav a {
  // within the inline-block parent, it's best practice to 
  // apply any padding to the <a> tag so its click area
  // is much easier for the user to find and click
  display: block;
  padding: 1em;
}

Text padding is not working in floated div

2 Answers