Welcome to a beginner’s tutorial on how to create a responsive horizontal list in HTML and CSS. Creating a list is easy in HTML, but there is just one very annoying problem – Both ordered and unordered list in HTML are vertical by default.
One of the easiest ways to create a horizontal list is to set a flexible container:
<ul class="hlist"> <li>ITEM</li> <li>ITEM</li> </ul>.hlist { display: flex; }.hlist li { list-style-type: none; }
That covers the basics, but let us walk through a few more examples in this guide – Read on!
ⓘ I have included a zip file with all the example source code at the start of this tutorial, so you don’t have to copy-paste everything… Or if you just want to dive straight in.
REAL QUICK TUTORIAL
TABLE OF CONTENTS
 Download & Notes |
 Horizontal List |
 Useful Bits & Links |
 The End |
DOWNLOAD & NOTES
Firstly, here is the download link to the example code as promised.
EXAMPLE CODE DOWNLOAD
Click here to download the source code, I have released it under the MIT license, so feel free to build on top of it or use it in your own project.
QUICK NOTES
If you spot a bug, please feel free to comment below. I try to answer questions too, but it is one person versus the entire world… If you need answers urgently, please check out my list of websites to get help with programming.
CSS HORIZONTAL LIST
All right, let us now get into the examples of how to create a horizontal list with HTML and CSS.
1) SIMPLE HORIZONTAL LIST
THE DEMO
- Doge
- Pupper
- Doggo
- Woofer
- Yapper
- Yipper
THE HTML
<ul class="hlist">
<li>Doge</li> <li>Pupper</li> <li>Doggo</li>
<li>Woofer</li> <li>Yapper</li> <li>Yipper</li>
</ul>That’s right, we do not need to do “anything special” in the HTML to create horizontal lists – Just use the usual <ul> and <ol>.
THE CSS
<style>
/* (A) ENTIRE LIST */
.hlist {
/* (A1) FLEXIBLE BOX */
display: flex;
width: 100%;
/* (A2) REMOVE DEFAULT INDENTATIONS */
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}
/* (B) LIST ITEMS */
.hlist li {
list-style-type: none;
padding: 5px;
}
/*.hlist li { list-style-position: inside; padding: 5px; }*/
</style>- A – As in the introduction,
display: flexis actually all it takes to turn a list into a horizontal layout. But problem is, the vertical list will have some indentation by default – We simply usepadding: 0; margin: 0;to remove it. - B – The list bullets are another problem to deal with. The easiest is to use
list-style-type: noneto remove them, or uselist-style-position: insideif you want to retain it.
2) RESPONSIVE HORIZONTAL LIST
THE DEMO
- Doge
- Pupper
- Doggo
- Woofer
- Yapper
- Yipper
Go ahead – Resize the window and see it break into 2 items a row on small screens.
THE CSS
<style>
/* (A) ENTIRE LIST */
.hlist {
/* (A1) FLEXIBLE BOX */
display: flex;
width: 100%;
/* (A2) REMOVE DEFAULT INDENTATIONS */
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}
/* (B) LIST ITEMS */
.hlist li {
list-style-type: none;
box-sizing: border-box;
padding: 10px;
background: #ffecec;
width: 100%; /* Auto spacing */
}
/* (C) RESPONSIVE SUPPORT - ON SMALL SCREENS */
@media screen and (max-width: 768px) {
/* (C1) ALLOW LIST ITEMS TO WRAP TO NEW ROW */
.hlist { flex-wrap: wrap; }
/* (C2) 2 ITEMS PER ROW */
.hlist li { width: 50%; }
}
</style>
This is pretty much an improved version of the simple horizontal list, with responsive support for mobile devices.
- A – No difference, still the same
display: flexlist. - B – To equally space the list items equally, we add
.hlist li { width: 100%; } - C – Styles for the small screen. Basically, breaking into 2 items per row.
USEFUL BITS & LINKS
That’s all for the main tutorial, and here is a small section on some extras and links that may be useful to you.
INFOGRAPHIC CHEAT SHEET
LINKS & REFERENCES
- CSS Flex – MDN
- List Style – CSS Tricks
- Looking to create a horizontal menu using the list? Check out my Hamburger Menu tutorial.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Thank you for reading, and we have come to the end of this guide. I hope that it has helped you with your project, and if you want to share anything with this guide, please feel free to comment below. Good luck and happy coding!
