Add vertical whitespace using Twitter Bootstrap?

Question

What's the best way to add vertical whitespace using Twitter's Bootstrap?

For example, let's say that I am creating a landing page and would like a bit (100px) of blank whitespace above and below a certain button. Obviously, I could create a certain class for that particular button. But, I would think that Bootstrap should have a DRY way of adding in vertical blank spaces.

Answer 1

In Bootstrap 4/5 there are spacing utilites (BS4, BS5).

Excerpt from the documentation:

Spacing utilities that apply to all breakpoints, from xs to xl, have no breakpoint abbreviation in them. This is because those classes are applied from min-width: 0 and up, and thus are not bound by a media query. The remaining breakpoints, however, do include a breakpoint abbreviation.

The classes are named using the format {property}{sides}-{size} for xs and {property}{sides}-{breakpoint}-{size} for sm, md, lg, and xl.

Where property is one of:

• m - for classes that set margin
• p - for classes that set padding

Where sides is one of (please note differences in BS4 and BS5):

• t - for classes that set margin-top or padding-top
• b - for classes that set margin-bottom or padding-bottom
• l - for classes that set margin-left or padding-left (Bootstrap 4)
• s - for classes that set margin-left or padding-left (Bootstrap 5)
• r - for classes that set margin-right or padding-right (Bootstrap 4)
• e - for classes that set margin-right or padding-right (Bootstrap 5)
• x - for classes that set both *-left and *-right
• y - for classes that set both *-top and *-bottom
• blank - for classes that set a margin or padding on all 4 sides of the element

Where size is one of:

• 0 - for classes that eliminate the margin or padding by setting it to 0
• 1 - (by default) for classes that set the margin or padding to $spacer * .25
• 2 - (by default) for classes that set the margin or padding to $spacer * .5
• 3 - (by default) for classes that set the margin or padding to $spacer
• 4 - (by default) for classes that set the margin or padding to $spacer * 1.5
• 5 - (by default) for classes that set the margin or padding to $spacer * 3

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So to have some extra vertical space above and below an element you would use my-5 class.

Answer 2

In v2, there isn't anything built-in for that much vertical space, so you'll want to stick with a custom class. For smaller heights, I usually just throw a <div class="control-group"> around a button.

Answer 3

Wrapping works but when you just want a space, I like:

<div class="col-xs-12" style="height:50px;"></div>

Answer 4

Sorry to dig an old grave here, but why not just do this?

<div class="form-group">
    &nbsp;
</div>

It will add a space the height of a normal form element.

It seems about 1 line on a form is roughly 50px (47px on my element I just inspected). This is a horizontal form, with label on left 2col and input on right 10col. So your pixels may vary.

Since mine is basically 50px, I would create a spacer of 50px tall with no margins or padding;

.spacer { margin:0; padding:0; height:50px; }
<div class="spacer"></div>

Answer 5

I know this is old, but I came here searching for the same thing, I found that Bootstrap has the help-block, very handy for these situations:

<div class="help-block"></div>

Answer 6

For version 3 there doesn't appear to be "bootstrap" way to achieve this neatly.

A panel, a well and a form-group all provide some vertical spacing.

A more formal specific vertical spacing solution is, apparently, on the roadmap for bootstrap v4

https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues/4286#issuecomment-36331550 https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues/13532

Answer 7

I merely created a div class using various heights i.e.

<div class="divider-10"></div>

The CSS is:

.divider-10 {
    width:100%; 
    min-height:1px; 
    margin-top:10px; 
    margin-bottom:10px;  
    display:inline-block; 
    position:relative;
}

Just create a divider class for what ever heights are needed.

Answer 8

My trick. Not elegant, but it works:

<p>&nbsp;</p>

Answer 9

Just use <br/>. I found myself here looking for the answer to this question and then felt sort of silly for not thinking about using a simple line break as suggested by user JayKilleen in a comment.

Answer 10

I know this is old and there are several good solutions already posted, but a simple solution that worked for me is the following CSS

<style>
  .divider{
    margin: 0cm 0cm .5cm 0cm;
  }
</style>

and then create a div in your html

<div class="divider"></div>

Answer 11

I tried using <div class="control-group"> and it did not change my layout. It did not add vertical space. The solution that worked for me was:

<ol style="visibility:hidden;"></ol>

If that doesn't give you enough vertical space, you can incrementally get more by adding nested <li>&nbsp;</li> tags.

Answer 12

<form>
 <fieldset class="form-group"><input type="text" class="form-control" placeholder="Input"/></fieldset>
 <fieldset class="form-group"><button class="btn btn-primary"/>Button</fieldset>
</form>

http://v4-alpha.getbootstrap.com/components/forms/#form-controls

Answer 13

There is nothing more DRY than

.btn {
    margin-bottom:5px;
}