left property

Sets or retrieves the position of the object relative to the left edge of the next positioned object in the document hierarchy.

Syntax

left: <length> | <percentage> | auto

Property values

auto: Default. Default position, according to the regular HTML layout of the page.
length: 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 Values and Units Reference.
percentage: Integer, followed by a percent sign (%). The value is a percentage of the width of the parent object.

CSS information

Applies To	All elements
Media	visual
Inherited	no
Initial Value	auto

Standards information

CSS 2.1, Section 9.3.2

Remarks

You should use the left attribute only when the position attribute is set; otherwise, the value of the left attribute is ignored.

Because the value of the left property is a string, you cannot use the property in script to calculate the position of the object in the document; instead, you should use the pixelLeft property or the posLeft property.

Because the value of the left property is a string, you cannot use the property to calculate the position of the object in the document.

For more information about how to access the dimension and location of objects on the page through the Dynamic HTML (DHTML) Document Object Model (DOM), see Measuring Element Dimension and Location with CSSOM in Internet Explorer 9.

Examples

The following example uses the left property to change the position of the blue div. In the example below, there are four div with absolute positioning. The blue div is positioned 250 pixels from the left.

Code example: http://samples.msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/samples/css/positioning/positioning.html

CSS



#blue{
   height: 150px;
   width: 150px;
   background-color: #00A4EF;
   position: absolute;
   left: 250px;
}

This example uses inline scripting to change the position of two images when an onclick event occurs.

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

HTML


<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title>left</title>
</head>

<body>
  <p>
    These images are aligned with the left side of this window using
    absolute positioning and left positioning.
  </p>
  <img id="cone" src="http://samples.msdn.microsoft.com/Workshop/graphics/cone.jpg" style="position: absolute" height="80" width="80" border="0" alt="cone">
  <img id="sphere" src="http://samples.msdn.microsoft.com/Workshop/graphics/sphere.jpg" style="position: absolute; left: 50px" height="80" width="80" border="0" alt="sphere">
  <div style="position: absolute; top: 250px; left: 7px;">
    <button onclick="cone.style.left='100px'; sphere.style.left='200px'">Move Over</button>
    <button onclick="cone.style.left=''; sphere.style.left='50px'">Move Back</button>
  </div>
</body>
</html>