The only (and the best cross-browser) way as I know is to use an inline-block helper with height: 100% and vertical-align: middle on both elements.
So there is a solution: http://jsfiddle.net/kizu/4RPFa/4570/
.frame {
height: 25px; /* Equals maximum image height */
width: 160px;
border: 1px solid red;
white-space: nowrap; /* This is required unless you put the helper span closely near the img */
text-align: center;
margin: 1em 0;
}
.helper {
display: inline-block;
height: 100%;
vertical-align: middle;
}
img {
background: #3A6F9A;
vertical-align: middle;
max-height: 25px;
max-width: 160px;
}
Or, if you don’t want to have an extra element in modern browsers and don’t mind using Internet Explorer expressions, you can use a pseudo-element and add it to Internet Explorer using a convenient Expression, that runs only once per element, so there won’t be any performance issues:
The solution with :before and expression() for Internet Explorer: http://jsfiddle.net/kizu/4RPFa/4571/
.frame {
height: 25px; /* Equals maximum image height */
width: 160px;
border: 1px solid red;
white-space: nowrap;
text-align: center;
margin: 1em 0;
}
.frame:before,
.frame_before {
content: “”;
display: inline-block;
height: 100%;
vertical-align: middle;
}
img {
background: #3A6F9A;
vertical-align: middle;
max-height: 25px;
max-width: 160px;
}
/* Move this to conditional comments */
.frame {
list-style:none;
behavior: expression(
function(t){
t.insertAdjacentHTML(‘afterBegin’,’‘);
t.runtimeStyle.behavior = ‘none’;
}(this)
);
}
How it works:
When you have two inline-block elements near each other, you can align each to other’s side, so with vertical-align: middle you’ll get something like this:
When you have a block with fixed height (in px, em or another absolute unit), you can set the height of inner blocks in %.
So, adding one inline-block with height: 100% in a block with fixed height would align another inline-block element in it ( in your case) vertically near it.
This might be useful:
div {
position: relative;
width: 200px;
height: 200px;
}
img {
position: absolute;
top: 0;
bottom: 0;
margin: auto;
}
.image {
min-height: 50px
}