Clearing CSS Floats Without Markup

This has done the rounds loads of times before – but clearing css floats is something I need to do all the time, and since I have to look up the code on every project I thought I would add it here so that I have a reminder.

This method uses css pseudo elements to do the clearing without adding random elements that contain ‘clear:both;’ which in turn means that the html is kept nice and clean and the css doesn’t interfere with anything else.

.clear{zoom:1;}
.clear:after{content:" ";display:block;visibility:hidden;clear:both;}
.clear:before{content:" ";display:block;visibility:hidden;}

Since I also use it with LESS here’s how I do that:

.clear {
	zoom:1;

	&:after {
		content:" ";
		display:block;
		visibility:hidden;
		clear:both;
	}
	&:before {
		content:" ";
		display:block;
		visibility:hidden;
	}
}

To use this just add the clear class to the element you want to clear.

<div class="clear">
<div class="float">Floaty thing here</div>
<div class="float">Floaty thing here</div>
</div>