Adding space between flexbox items

Question

I'm trying to create a horizontally scrollable div with flexbox. So far, I have most of it. However, the only problem I am facing is that I'm trying to add space to my items, but for some reason, nothing seems to be working. I've tried adding margin, padding, justifying content, etc. Here's a jsfiddle of what I'm trying to achieve.

    .grid {
      display: -webkit-flex;
      display: -ms-flexbox;
      display: flex;
      margin-bottom: 20px;
      justify-content: space-between;
    }
    
    /*Each item is one column*/
    
    .item {
      width: 50%;
    }
    
    .article-scroll-mobile {
      box-shadow: 0 4px 8px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
      flex-wrap: nowrap;
      text-align: center;
      overflow-x: auto;
      -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch;
      /*For iOS smooth scroll effect*/
    }

 <div class="grid article-scroll-mobile">
      <div class="item">
        <img src="https://www.w3schools.com/howto/img_fjords.jpg">
      </div>
      <div class="item">
        <img src="https://www.w3schools.com/howto/img_fjords.jpg">
    
      </div>
      <div class="item">
        <img src="https://www.w3schools.com/howto/img_fjords.jpg">
    
      </div>
      <div class="item">
        <img src="https://www.w3schools.com/howto/img_fjords.jpg">
    
      </div>
      <div class="item">
        <img src="https://www.w3schools.com/howto/img_fjords.jpg">
    
      </div>
      <div class="item">
        <img src="https://www.w3schools.com/howto/img_fjords.jpg">
    
      </div>
    </div>

Alexander Kim · Accepted Answer · 2019-05-16 15:58:24Z

There a few things you have to consider.

First of all; with justify-content you define how remaining space is handled. By using space-between your items will be aligned so that the space between them is equal, by setting it to center the remaining space will be around all items, with all items stuck together.

In your case though, there is no remaining space, because your items actually stretch the div. So that doesn't help you.

Next; you've set the width of an item to 50%. Which is fine, your item's will be 50% of the viewport. That's because your grid will implicitly be 100% of the viewport. But because your image overflows the box, you can set margins if you want, and they will put the items further apart, but you need big-ass margins to actually see them. Bigger then the overflowing of your image.

So, to fix this, you make the images responsive by making them as width as the item;

.item img { display: block; height: auto; width: 100%; }

But that poses another problem; flexbox tries to size it's flex items to fit it all into the flex container. So you'll see that it automatically resizes your items so they will all fit in. To fix this, you have to explicitly force the width of your items;

.item { flex: 0 0 50%; }

Which is a shorthand for;

.item { flex-grow: 0; flex-shrink: 0; flex-basis: 50%; }

So basically you say; make my item 50% of it's container, and don't use your awesome algorithm to try to make it bigger or smaller.

Now you've got what you want, and you can use margin-right: 20px for example to create a 20px space between your items.

Full snippet;

.grid { display: flex; width: 100%; }

.item { flex: 0 0 50%; margin-right: 20px; }
.item img { display: block; height: auto; width: 100%; }

.article-scroll-mobile {
  box-shadow: 0 4px 8px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
  flex-wrap: nowrap;
  text-align: center;
  overflow-x: auto;
  -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch;
  /*For iOS smooth scroll effect*/
}

<div class="grid article-scroll-mobile">
  <div class="item">
    <img src="https://www.w3schools.com/howto/img_fjords.jpg">
  </div>
  <div class="item">
    <img src="https://www.w3schools.com/howto/img_fjords.jpg">
  </div>
  <div class="item">
    <img src="https://www.w3schools.com/howto/img_fjords.jpg">
  </div>
  <div class="item">
    <img src="https://www.w3schools.com/howto/img_fjords.jpg">
  </div>
  <div class="item">
    <img src="https://www.w3schools.com/howto/img_fjords.jpg">
  </div>
  <div class="item">
    <img src="https://www.w3schools.com/howto/img_fjords.jpg">
  </div>
</div>

Penny Liu · Accepted Answer · 2022-01-04 13:19:45Z

24

There is column-gap to adjust row gaps between elements.

.form-container {
  display: flex;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
  justify-content: space-between;
  align-items: stretch;
  column-gap: 0.875rem;
}

edited Jan 4, 2022 at 13:19

Penny Liu

17.9k5 gold badges89 silver badges109 bronze badges

answered Jul 21, 2021 at 16:13

Athena Chen

3292 silver badges4 bronze badges

2 Comments

j.k Over a year ago

This will adjust space between individual columns - i.e., to the left and right of a column. For space between flex-wrapped rows (above/beneath a row), use row-gap.

ahinkle Over a year ago

This doesn't work.

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