I have a client that insists on centering their site vertically and horizontially. I've got it working in most browsers except IE on a Mac, which my client uses. Are there any workable solutions out there or can I honestly tell the client it can't be done? This is beyond my expertise. Chris Loomis Photography

<!--
body
{
color: white;
background-color: black;
margin: 0px
}
#content
{
font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, sans-serif;
background-color: black;
text-align: center;
margin-top: -296px;
margin-left: -385px;
position: absolute;
top: 50%;
left: 50%;
width: 770px;
height: 593px;
visibility: visible;
}
-->
</style>

Tell your client that IE Mac is a DEAD browser and the large majority of Mac users are using Safari or Konqueror or other newer browser.

There is an IE Mac bug list here that might help:
IE 5 Mac: CSS bugs and oddities

However, rather than using position: absolute, use margins.

Set the text-align: center for IE browsers on your main container you want to center which should be set to position: relative, have a defined width for it. For any other browser, set the margins for the centered container to margin: 0 auto and it will center.

Absolute positioning can cause a lot of problems, best to use the document flow and other positioning methods.

I'm a newbie to the full potential of css. Do you have an example? Also, is there a way to have a different set of rules for those browsers that don't play well like IE?

if you check out Position Is Everything they have everything you will need for positioning and cross browser compatability, normally there are some elements availible to code in your css that ie. 6 and below doesnt recognise and can be exploited.

P.I.E. is an execellent resource, I use it all the time

Like LNR said, save yourself the bother.

The following link is from Microsoft's own website and it directly concerns IE for the MAC:

Internet Explorer 5 for Mac

If they still want it supported after reading that, then both you and they are screwed.

Thanks for all the comments. They have been very helpful in retaining my sanity throughout this entire process. I'm pretty sure the client will be happy if it works in all browsers being vertically centered and just not in the IE Mac version so, I'm trying an IE Mac specific hack to ignore my css style sheet code. Found it through /* Position Is Everything */ &mdash; Modern browser bugs explained in detail! ---not the .com address.

selector {
property: value for Explorer 5 Mac
}

/*
First comment. Explorer 5 Mac misses the end-of-comment
because of the backslash
\*/

selector {
property: value for all other browsers
}

/*
Second comment. Explorer 5 Mac sees the end of this
comment as the end of the previous one
*/

Would anyone be willing to test for me? It works in Safari (Mac) and IE6 and Mozilla on a PC for me. I just need to be sure I didn't break any other browsers in the process. I'm assumming the Mac version is now only horizontally centered.

Chris Loomis Photography