vertical gaps in ie6 and ie7

sudhakararaog · Joined: 01 Oct 2009 Posts: 100

my question is about ie6 and ie7 creating unwanted vertical gap of 3px

in my page i have an outer div which is holding 4 inner divs following is the code

#outer{
float: left;
width: 900px;
height: auto;
}

#outer .inner1{
float: left;
width: 200px;
height: auto;
}
#outer .inner2{
float: left;
width: 200px;
height: auto;
}
#outer .inner3{
float: left;
width: 200px;
height: auto;
}
#outer .inner4{
float: left;
width: 300px;
height: auto;
}

after this a new div starts with width 900px with the remaining page content, in order to clear the floats before the new div starts i have used

<br class="break" />
.break{
clear: both;
}

due to this the next div top edge starts exactly below the bottom edge of the outer div which is holding the inner divs, only in ie6 and ie7 there is a small vertical gap which i want to remove, as of now i have used
*margin: -3px 0 0 0; and _margin: -3px 0 0 0; for ie6 and ie7 for the next div and it looks similar to all other browsers

instead of using the -3px top margin is a way i can avoid the 3px vertical gap that ie is creating.
can i change .break to
.break{
clear: both;
height: 1px;
}

i am not very sure of this. sometimes this code also works <div class="clear"></div> .clear{clear: both;} as an alternative to <br class="break" />

also i have tried using the following code to fix ie6 and 7

* html .divname{
margin: -3px 0 0 0;
}
*+html .divname{
margin: -3px 0 0 0;
}

the advantage of using * html does not give any warnings when i validate the code from w3.org website however using _ and * gives a warning message for using _ and *

please advice if there is a way to avoid the 3px gap in ie6 and 7 without the above code or if there is no other alternative other than to use any of the 2 techniques

thanks.

sticks464 · Joined: 31 Dec 2006 Posts: 2625

See if some of this helps

sudhakararaog · Joined: 01 Oct 2009 Posts: 100

thanks for replying

the code you sent works fine in all browsers including ie6 and 7 with no vertical gaps and there are no vertical gaps for the content div

normally when there are divs that float and if a new div starts like the content div if clear is not used the content in the content div would appear in some random location however that was not the case in your code it started exactly below the previous floating divs, does this depend on certain conditions.

sticks464 · Joined: 31 Dec 2006 Posts: 2625

IE requires what is known as 'hasLayout' which requires a width and height to be set to containers holding floats.

sudhakararaog · Joined: 01 Oct 2009 Posts: 100

thanks for the information.