<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Vertical-align: baseline of an inline-block depends on 'overflow'</title> <link rel="help" href="http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS22/visudet.html#leading" title="10.8.1 Leading and half-leading" /> <link rel="help" href="http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS22/changes.html#s.10.8.1" title="C.1 Changes since the Recommendation of 7 June 2011" /> <meta name="assert" content="The baseline of an 'inline-block’ whose ‘overflow’ property has a computed value of ‘visible’ is the baseline of its last line box in the normal flow, unless it has no in-flow line boxes, in which case the baseline is the bottom margin edge." /> <link rel="match" href="inline-block-baseline-010-ref.xht" /> <link rel="author" title="Bert Bos" href="mailto:bert@w3.org" /> <style type="text/css"><![CDATA[ body {background: white; color: black; font-size: 15px} p {white-space: nowrap; line-height: 5} span {display: inline-block; overflow: visible; /* This inline-block has no line boxes, it's aligned at the bottom margin */ vertical-align: -0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; height: 1em; width: 1em; background: blue} ]]></style> </head> <body> <p> A blue square <span></span> sits on the baseline. </p> </body> </html>