How to make padding:auto work in CSS?

Question

I am working on a legacy project that has CSS Reset with *{ margin:0; padding:0 } applied to everything. Now, my new code doesn't need that as it relies on Normalize.css. This hasn't been much of a problem but at some places I need to use both styles.

How do I unreset my CSS? I have been able to do *{margin:auto} which works fine. The same isn't true about padding. Is there an equivalent way to reset the padding. How do you go about solving this?

Overrefinement

first of all padding:auto; is nothing.. and secondly on whatever you change, you can give !important to use this one in every case – Callous

possible duplicate of HTML / CSS : Reset List Padding to Default – Bamako

@Callous I can't use !important because I am working on a Responsive design and thus using !important can make things really difficult with media queries – Overrefinement

okay.. then you should follow Mr.Alien's answer.. i think that's correct – Callous

Answer 1

auto is not a valid value for padding property, the only thing you can do is take out padding: 0; from the * declaration, else simply assign padding to respective property block.

If you remove padding: 0; from * {} than browser will apply default styles to your elements which will give you unexpected cross browser positioning offsets by few pixels, so it is better to assign padding: 0; using * and than if you want to override the padding, simply use another rule like

.container p {
   padding: 5px;
}

Interrupt

I don't want to remove padding:0 because this will have issues with previously done legacy code. I think the only options is to add padding where required since it can't be unreset like margin. – Overrefinement

@VaibhavKanwal yes, as I suggested – Interrupt

Answer 2

The simplest supported solution is to either use margin

.element {
  display: block;
  margin: 0px auto;
}

Or use a second container around the element that has this margin applied. This will somewhat have the effect of padding: 0px auto if it did exist.

CSS

.element_wrapper {
  display: block;
  margin: 0px auto;
}
.element {
  background: blue;
}

HTML

<div class="element_wrapper">
  <div class="element">
    Hello world
  </div>
</div>

Podiatry

I think you might've meant to put margin auto on the child element – Loreleilorelie

Answer 3

You should just scope your * selector to the specific areas that need the reset. .legacy * { }, etc.

Food

generally we set margin: 0; padding: 0 on body so the nested elements simply inherit this, the above will work only if you don't set margin: 0; padding: 0 to body – Interrupt

Answer 4

You can reset the padding (and I think everything else) with initial to the default.

p {
    padding: initial;
}

Bareilly

Answer 5

if you're goal is to reset EVERYTHING then @Björn's answer should be your goal but applied as:

* {
  padding: initial;
}

if this is loaded after your original reset.css should have the same weight and will rely on each browser's default padding as initial value.

Wivern