How to Align Navbar Items to Center using Bootstrap 4?

Bootstrap CSS Web Development Front End Technology

Bootstrap 4 is a popular CSS framework that helps developers create responsive, mobilefirst websites quickly and easily. One of the most common design elements in a website is the navigation bar or navbar. In this article, we will discuss how to align the items in a navbar to the center using Bootstrap 4.

Approaches

There are a few different ways to align the items in a navbar to the center using Bootstrap 4.

The two approaches that we will be discussing in this article are −

Using Built-in Bootstrap 4 Classes
Using CSS to override the default alignment of the navbar items.

Approach 1: Using Built-in Bootstrap 4 Classes

The first approach is to use the built-in Bootstrap 4 classes for aligning elements. Bootstrap 4 provides several classes for controlling the alignment of elements, including the "justifycontent-center" class. This class can be applied to the "navbar-nav" class to align the items in the navbar to the center.

Example

Here is a step-by-step code example with output −

Step 1 − Start by creating a navbar using the "navbar" class, along with additional classes such as "navbar-expand-lg" and "navbar-light" for styling.

<nav class="navbar navbar-expand-lg navbar-light bg-light">

Step 2 − Add a "navbar-brand" class to your navbar's brand/logo.

<a class="navbar-brand" href="#">Navbar</a>

Step 3 − Create a button for toggling the navbar's items using the "navbar-toggler" class, along with data-toggle and data-target attributes for specifying the target element and toggling behavior.

<button class="navbar-toggler" type="button" data-toggle="collapse" datatarget="#navbarNav" aria-controls="navbarNav" aria-expanded="false" arialabel="Toggle navigation">
   <span class="navbar-toggler-icon"></span>
</button>

Step 4 − Create a container for the navbar's items using the "collapse navbar-collapse" class, along with an "id" attribute that matches the "data-target" attribute from the button.

<div class="collapse navbar-collapse" id="navbarNav">

Step 5 − Inside the container, create an unordered list of navbar items using the "navbar-nav" class.

<ul class="navbar-nav">

Step 6 − Add the "justify-content-center" class to the "navbar-nav" class to align the items to the center.

<ul class="navbar-nav justify-content-center">

Step 7 − Add list items with "nav-item" and "nav-link" classes for each item in the navbar.

<li class="nav-item active">
   <a class="nav-link" href="#">Home</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
   <a class="nav-link" href="#">Features</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
   <a class="nav-link" href="#">Pricing</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
   <a class="nav-link disabled" href="#">Disabled</a>
</li>

Step 8 − This is the entire code for the approach using built-in Bootstrap 4 classes to align the navbar items to the center in a single HTML file (index.html) −

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
   <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.5.2/css/bootstrap.min.css" integrity="sha384-HcXJqkjpN8O9+IbbTn2m79DyPwMlXwoWufeQjZHPn6EdauI1b6Q5t7mx8X7jIbbV" crossorigin="anonymous">
   <script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.5.1.slim.min.js" integrity="sha384-DfXdz2htPH0lsSSs5nCTpuj/zy4C+OGpamoFVy38MVBnE+IbbVYUew+OrCXaRkfj" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
   <script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@popperjs/core@2.9.3/dist/umd/popper.min.js" integrity="sha384-Z4P4o6WOKU6Pzzg6y+UJyOY5k5+gIWe0X0Sl/Z5Z5JmBjgyc6UFO2H2zij6UwPi" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
   <script src="https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.5.2/js/bootstrap.min.js" integrity="sha384-OgVRvuATP1z7JjHLkuOU7Xw704+h835Lr+6QL9UvYjZEjThE6Zf3G3b6QZ1G5KM+" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
   <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.0.0/css/bootstrap.min.css" integrity="sha384-Gn5384xqQ1aoWXA+058RXPxPg6fy4IWvTNh0E263XmFcJlSAwiGgFAW/dAiS6JXm" crossorigin="anonymous">
</head>
<body>
   <nav class="navbar navbar-expand-lg navbar-light bg-light">
      <a class="navbar-brand" href="#">Navbar</a>
      <button class="navbar-toggler" type="button" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#navbarNav" aria-controls="navbarNav" aria-expanded="false" aria-label="Toggle navigation">
         <span class="navbar-toggler-icon"></span>
      </button>
      <div class="collapse navbar-collapse" id="navbarNav">
         <ul class="navbar-nav justify-content-center">
            <li class="nav-item active">
               <a class="nav-link" href="#">Home</a>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item">
               <a class="nav-link" href="#">Features</a>
            </li>
         </ul>
      </div>
   </nav>
   <script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.2.1.slim.min.js" integrity="sha384-KJ3o2DKtIkvYIK3UENzmM7KCkRr/rE9/Qpg6aAZGJwFDP1zG7Nr" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
   <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/popper.js/1.12.9/umd/popper.min.js" integrity="sha384-ApNbgh9B+Y1QKtv3Rn7W3mgPxhU9K/ScQsAP7hUibX39j7fakFPskvXusvfa0b4Q" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
   <script src="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.0.0/js/bootstrap.min.js" integrity="sha384-JZR6Spejh4U02d8jOt6vLEHfe/JQGiRRSQQxSfFWpi1MquVdAyjUar5+76PVCmYl" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
</body>
</html>

Approach 2: Using CSS

The second approach is to use CSS to override the default alignment of the navbar items. This can be done by targeting the "navbar-nav" class in CSS and using the "justify-content" property with a value of "center".

Example

Here is a step-by-step code example with output −

Step 1 − Create an HTML file, and add the following code to include Bootstrap 4 CSS and JS files in your project.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
   <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.0.0/css/bootstrap.min.css" integrity="sha384-Gn5384xqQ1aoWXA+058RXPxPg6fy4IWvTNh0E263XmFcJlSAwiGgFAW/dAiS6JXm" crossorigin="anonymous">
</head>
<body>
   <nav class="navbar navbar-expand-lg navbar-light bg-light">
      <a class="navbar-brand" href="#">Navbar</a>
      <button class="navbar-toggler" type="button" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#navbarNav" aria-controls="navbarNav" aria-expanded="false" aria-label="Toggle navigation">
         <span class="navbar-toggler-icon"></span>
      </button>
      <div class="collapse navbar-collapse" id="navbarNav">
         <ul class="navbar-nav">
            <li class="nav-item active">
               <a class="nav-link" href="#">Home</a>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item">
               <a class="nav-link" href="#">Features</a>
            </li>
         </ul>
      </div>
   </nav>
   <script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.2.1.slim.min.js" integrity="sha384-KJ3o2DKtIkvYIK3UENzmM7KCkRr/rE9/Qpg6aAZGJwFDMVNA/GpGFF93hXpG5KkN" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
   <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/popper.js/1.12.9/umd/popper.min.js" integrity="sha384-ApNbgh9B+Y1QKtv3Rn7W3mgPxhU9K/ScQsAP7hUibX39j7fakFPskvXusvfa0b4Q" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
   <script src="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.0.0/js/bootstrap.min.js" integrity="sha384-JZR6Spejh4U02d8jOt6vLEHfe/JQGiRRSQQxSfFWpi1MquVdAyjUar5+76PVCmYl" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
</body>
</html>

Step 2 − In your CSS file, add the following code to target the "navbar-nav" class and align the items in the navbar to the center.

.navbar-nav{
   justify-content: center;
}

Step 3 − The entire code in a single HTML (index.html) file is as below −

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
   <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.0.0/css/bootstrap.min.css" integrity="sha384-Gn5384xqQ1aoWXA+058RXPxPg6fy4IWvTNh0E263XmFcJlSAwiGgFAW/dAiS6JXm" crossorigin="anonymous">

   <style>
      .navbar-nav{
         justify-content: center;
      }
   </style>
</head>
<body>
   <nav class="navbar navbar-expand-lg navbar-light bg-light">
      <a class="navbar-brand" href="#">Navbar</a>
      <button class="navbar-toggler" type="button" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#navbarNav" aria-controls="navbarNav" aria-expanded="false" aria-label="Toggle navigation">
         <span class="navbar-toggler-icon"></span>
      </button>
      <div class="collapse navbar-collapse" id="navbarNav">
         <ul class="navbar-nav">
            <li class="nav-item active">
               <a class="nav-link" href="#">Home</a>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item">
               <a class="nav-link" href="#">Features</a>
            </li>
         </ul>
      </div>
   </nav>
   <script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.2.1.slim.min.js" integrity="sha384-KJ3o2DKtIkvYIK3UENzmM7KCkRr/rE9/Qpg6aAZGJwFDMVNA/GpGFF93hXpG5KkN" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
   <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/popper.js/1.12.9/umd/popper.min.js" integrity="sha384-ApNbgh9B+Y1QKtv3Rn7W3mgPxhU9K/ScQsAP7hUibX39j7fakFPskvXusvfa0b4Q" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
   <script src="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.0.0/js/bootstrap.min.js" integrity="sha384-JZR6Spejh4U02d8jOt6vLEHfe/JQGiRRSQQxSfFWpi1MquVdAyjUar5+76PVCmYl" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
</body>
</html>

Conclusion

In this article, we have discussed how to align the items in a navbar to the center using Bootstrap 4. We have presented two approaches: using built-in Bootstrap 4 classes and using CSS. Both approaches are simple and easy to implement, and the choice of which approach to use will depend on the specific requirements of your project.

Diksha Patro

Updated on: 17-Feb-2023

8K+ Views

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