Equivalent to <center> tag in CSS? [duplicate]

Question

This question already has an answer here:

• Why is the <center> tag deprecated in HTML? 17 answers

I read that the <center> tag is deprecated, however I cannot find any real equivalent to it in CSS. text-align works for text but not other elements, and auto margins only work if you know the width of the container (so not a solution if you don't know the width in advance). So is there any real equivalent to this <center> tag?

Answer 1

text-align should work for other kinds of elements. Does this work?

.center { margin: auto; text-align: center; }

Edit Three Years Later :-D

"margin: auto;" also makes the top and bottom margins "auto". That might not be what you want. Alternatively you could have something like:

.center { margin-left: auto;
          margin-right: auto;
          margin-top: 3px;
          margin-bottom: 3px;
          text-align: center; }

This particular example will center the text horizontally while hardwiring the upper and lower margins to 3 pixels.

One can also say something like "margin: 3px auto 3px auto;" but I prefer spelling out the directions explicitly, as I can never quite remember what the order of the parameters are, if I put them all on the one "margin:" setting.

Answer 2

There is a difference

    <center>
      <span> works </span>
    </center>

    <span style="margin: auto; text-align: center;"> And this is broken</span>

    <div style="margin: auto; text-align: center;"> but this works works</div>