9.3. Absolute Positioning

Since most of the examples and figures in the chapter (besides the previous section) have been examples of absolute positioning, we're already halfway to an understanding of how it works. Most of what remain are the details of what happens when absolute positioning is invoked.

When an element is positioned absolutely, it is completely removed from the document flow. It is then positioned with respect to its containing block, and its edges are placed using the side-offset properties. The positioned element does not flow around the content of other elements, nor does their content flow around the positioned element. This implies that an absolutely positioned element may overlap other elements, or be overlapped by them. (We'll see how you can affect the overlapping order at the end of the chapter.)