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 lists 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.
QUICK SLIDES
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.
QUICK NOTES
If you spot a bug, feel free to comment below. I try to answer short 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.
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.
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> or <ol>.
THE CSS
<style>
/* (A) REMOVE DEFAULT INDENTATIONS & BULLET POINTS */
.hlist { padding: 0; margin: 0; }
.hlist li { list-style-type: none; }
/* (B) "CONVERT" TO HORIZONTAL LIST */
.hlist { display: flex; }
</style>- First, we remove the default indentations of the
<ul>or<ol>withpadding: 0andmargin: 0. We can also remove the default bullet points withlist-style-type: none. - As in the introduction,
display: flexis actually all it takes to turn a list into a horizontal layout.
P.S. display: flex will set the layout of the list to a “CSS flexible box”. This is an important layout mechanism in modern CSS, alongside display: grid. I will leave links below if you want to learn more.
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) HORIZONTAL LIST */
.hlist {
/* (A1) REMOVE DEFAULT INDENTATIONS */
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
/* (A2) FLEXIBLE BOX */
display: flex;
width: 100%;
/* (A3) COSMETICS */
background: #ffecec;
}
/* (B) LIST ITEMS */
.hlist li {
/* (B1) REMOVE BULLET POINTS */
list-style-type: none;
/* (B2) IF YOU WANT TO KEEP THE BULLET POINTS *
list-style-position: inside;
/* (B3) DIMENSIONS */
box-sizing: border-box;
padding: 10px;
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>
Don’t need to panic. This is pretty much just an improved version of the simple horizontal list, with responsive support for mobile devices.
- This is the same “remove default indentation”, and use
display: flexto turn the list into a flexible layout. - Remove the default bullet points. But to equally space the list items, we add
.hlist li { width: 100%; } - The
@mediais called a “media query”. Basically, these “alternate styles” will only apply on the small screen. Long story short, we break into 2 items per row on small screens.
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.
LINKS & REFERENCES
- CSS Flex – MDN
- CSS Grid – MDN
- List Style – CSS Tricks
- Using Media Queries – MDN
- Looking to create a horizontal menu using the list? Check out my Hamburger Menu tutorial.
INFOGRAPHIC CHEAT SHEET
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!
