margin-left Attribute | marginLeft Property

Gets or sets the width of the left margin of the object.

Syntax

CSS	{ margin-left : sWidth }
Scripting	[ sWidth = ] object.style.marginLeft

Possible Values

sWidth

String that specifies or receives one of the following values. auto Default. Left margin is set equal to the right margin. width Floating-point number, followed by an absolute units designator (cm, mm, in, pt, or pc) or a relative units designator (em, ex, or px). For more information about the supported length units, see CSS Length Units Reference. percentage Integer, followed by a percent sign (%). The value is a percentage of the width of the parent object.

The property is read/write for all objects except the following, for which it is read-only: currentStyle. The property has a default value of auto. The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) attribute is not inherited.

DHTML expressions can be used in place of the preceding value(s). As of Internet Explorer 8, expressions are supported in IE7 Standards mode and IE5 (Quirks) mode only. For more information, see About Dynamic Properties and Defining Document Compatibility.

Remarks

As of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 and later, you can specify possible length values relative to the height of the element's font ( em ) or the height of the letter "x" ( ex ).

In Internet Explorer 3.0, the specified margin value is added to the default value of the object. In Internet Explorer 4.0 and later, the margin value is absolute. The margin properties do not work with the td and tr objects in Internet Explorer 4.0, but they do work in Internet Explorer 3.0. To set margins in the cell for Internet Explorer 4.0 and later, apply the margin to an object, such as div or p, within the td.

As of Internet Explorer 5.5, this property applies to inline elements. With earlier versions of Windows Internet Explorer, inline elements must have an absolute  position or layout to use this property. Element layout is set by providing a value for the height property or the width property.

Negative margins are supported, except for top and bottom margins on inline objects.

Examples

The following examples use the margin-left attribute and the marginLeft property to change the margin of the object.

This example uses the img object as a selector to set the left margin to 2 centimeters for all images.

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<STYLE>
    IMG { margin-left:2cm }
</STYLE>

Code example: http://samples.msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/samples/author/dhtml/refs/margin-left.htm

This example uses inline scripting to set the left margin of the image to 1 centimeter when an onclick event occurs.

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<IMG src="sphere.jpg" onclick="this.style.marginLeft='1cm'">

Code example: http://samples.msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/samples/author/dhtml/refs/marginLeft.htm

Standards Information

This property is defined in Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Level 1 (CSS1).

Applies To

A, ABBR, ACRONYM, B, BDO, BIG, BLOCKQUOTE, BODY, BUTTON, CAPTION, CENTER, CITE, CODE, CSSStyleDeclaration, currentStyle, CUSTOM, DD, defaults, DEL, DFN, DIR, DIV, DL, DT, EM, EMBED, FIELDSET, FONT, FORM, hn, HR, I, IFRAME, IMG, INPUT type=button, INPUT type=checkbox, INPUT type=file, INPUT type=image, INPUT type=password, INPUT type=radio, INPUT type=reset, INPUT type=submit, INPUT type=text, INS, ISINDEX, KBD, LABEL, LI, LISTING, MARQUEE, MENU, NOBR, OBJECT, OL, P, PLAINTEXT, PRE, Q, runtimeStyle, S, SAMP, SMALL, SPAN, STRIKE, STRONG, style, SUB, SUP, TABLE, TD, TEXTAREA, TH, TT, U, UL, VAR, XMP, CSSCurrentStyleDeclaration Constructor, CSSRuleStyleDeclaration Constructor, CSSStyleDeclaration Constructor

See Also

CSS Length Units Reference, CSS Enhancements in Internet Explorer 6