margin-block

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since September 2021.

The margin-block CSS shorthand property defines the logical block start and end margins of an element, which maps to physical margins depending on the element's writing mode, directionality, and text orientation.

Try it

Constituent properties

This property is a shorthand for the following CSS properties:

Syntax

css
/* <length> values */
margin-block: 10px 20px; /* An absolute length */
margin-block: 1em 2em; /* relative to the text size */
margin-block: 5% 2%; /* relative to the nearest block container's width */
margin-block: 10px; /* sets both start and end values */

/* Keyword values */
margin-block: auto;

/* Global values */
margin-block: inherit;
margin-block: initial;
margin-block: revert;
margin-block: revert-layer;
margin-block: unset;

This property corresponds to the margin-top and margin-bottom, or the margin-right and margin-left properties, depending on the values defined for writing-mode, direction, and text-orientation.

The margin-block property may be specified using one or two values.

  • When one value is specified, it applies the same margin to both start and end.
  • When two values are specified, the first margin applies to the start, the second to the end.

Values

The margin-block property takes the same values as the margin property.

Formal definition

Initial valueas each of the properties of the shorthand:
Applies tosame as margin
Inheritedno
Percentagesdepends on layout model
Computed valueas each of the properties of the shorthand:
  • margin-block-start: if specified as a length, the corresponding absolute length; if specified as a percentage, the specified value; otherwise, auto
  • margin-block-end: if specified as a length, the corresponding absolute length; if specified as a percentage, the specified value; otherwise, auto
Animation typea length

Formal syntax

margin-block = 
  <'margin-top'>{1,2}  

<margin-top> = 
  <length-percentage>  |
  auto                 |
  <anchor-size()>      

<length-percentage> = 
  <length>      |
  <percentage>  

<anchor-size()> = 
  anchor-size( [ <anchor-name> || <anchor-size> ]? , <length-percentage>? )  

<anchor-name> = 
  <dashed-ident>  

<anchor-size> = 
  width        |
  height       |
  block        |
  inline       |
  self-block   |
  self-inline

Examples

Setting block start and end margins

CSS

css
div {
  background-color: yellow;
  width: 120px;
  height: auto;
  border: 1px solid green;
}

p {
  margin: 0;
  margin-block: 20px 40px;
  background-color: tan;
}

.verticalExample {
  writing-mode: vertical-rl;
}

HTML

html
<div>
  <p>Example text</p>
</div>
<div class="verticalExample">
  <p>Example text</p>
</div>

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Logical Properties and Values Level 1
# propdef-margin-block

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also