


Maintaining aspect ratios with CSS padding-top hack or aspect-ratio property
Jul 08, 2025 am 01:35 AMThere are two ways to maintain element aspect ratio in web layout: 1. Use padding-top tricks; 2. Use the aspect-ratio attribute. The padding-top method achieves proportional control through percentage calculation of placeholding, which has good compatibility but complex structure, and is suitable for block-level elements; the aspect-ratio method is simple and intuitive, supports modern browsers, and can directly set aspect ratios, which are suitable for responsive design and inline elements. If you need to be compatible with old browsers, you can use fallback style in combination with feature query.
Maintaining the aspect ratio of elements in web layout, especially in responsive design, is a common requirement. For example, you want a video container to always maintain a 16:9 ratio, or a picture frame will remain square no matter how large the screen is. There are two common methods at this time: use padding-top
to create a "placeholder", or directly use the aspect-ratio
attribute supported by modern browsers.

Let’s take a look at how to use these two methods and when to use them more appropriately.

Use padding-top to make the aspect ratio and placeholder
This method is actually a CSS trick, which uses the feature that padding-top
percentage is calculated based on the width of the parent container.
For example, if you want to make a 16:9 box:

.aspect-box { position: relative; width: 100%; padding-top: 56.25%; /* 9 / 16 = 0.5625 */ } .content { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }
In this way, .aspect-box
will automatically calculate the height based on the width, thereby maintaining a 16:9 ratio. Putting .content
inside can fill this fixed-scale space.
The advantage of this method is that it has good compatibility and can also be supported by old browsers. But the disadvantages are also obvious: the structure is a bit complicated, and it needs to be nested with a layer, and it is only suitable for block-level elements and cannot be directly applied to pictures or other inline elements.
Use aspect-ratio to set the aspect ratio directly
After aspect-ratio
property of CSS appears, things become much simpler. You can set the aspect ratio directly to an element, such as:
.square { aspect-ratio: 1 / 1; width: 100px; }
This way, no matter what the content is, the element will remain square. You can also use width: 100%
responsiveness:
.video-container { aspect-ratio: 16 / 9; width: 100%; }
The biggest advantage of this method is that it is its simplicity and intuitiveness , without nesting structures or absolute positioning. But it should be noted that not all browsers fully support it, although mainstream modern browsers are no longer a problem.
How to choose: padding-top or aspect-ratio?
- Need to be compatible with old browsers (such as IE)?
Then you still have to use the padding-top method. - Pursuing concise code and clear structure?
It is recommended to useaspect-ratio
. - Is the element itself a picture or video?
You can tryaspect-ratio
first, and then switch back to padding-top if it doesn't work. - Want to do a responsive container wrapping iframe or something?
Both are available, but padding-top is more flexible.
If your project has low compatibility requirements, aspect-ratio
is the first choice. If you also want to consider the old browser, you can combine the two and use feature query to determine whether it supports it:
@supports (aspect-ratio: 1/1) { .box { aspect-ratio: 16 / 9; width: 100%; } } /* fallback styles here if needed */
Basically that's it. The two methods have their own applicable scenarios, which are not complicated but are easy to ignore details, such as percentage calculation, absolute positioning position control, and browser compatibility issues. Choosing the right method can make your layout easier and more reliable.
The above is the detailed content of Maintaining aspect ratios with CSS padding-top hack or aspect-ratio property. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

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