CSS row-gap

The CSS row-gap property specifies a fixed-length gutter between rows in a container, adding space between them.

It specifies spacing between rows, separating boxes in the container’s block axis.

You can specify the row gap to be either normal or to be a specific size (for example, a value of 30px would create a row gap of 30 pixels).

The row-gap property is similar to column-gap, except that row-gap currently only applies to flexbox and grid containers (column-gap applies to multi-column containers in addition to flexbox and grid containers).

The exact handling of row-gap depends on the type of layout container.

• On flex containers, when applied to the cross axis (e.g. in a row flex container), indicates minimum spacing between adjacent flex lines.
• On grid containers, it defines the gutters between grid rows. It works the same as grid-row-gap before it was repurposed to be an alias for row-gap.

Flexbox Layout

Here's an example of row-gap being used on a flex container.

Grid Layout

Here's an example of row-gap being used on a grid container (this is the same example that's displayed at the top of this article).

Syntax

Possible Values

<length-percentage>

Specifies the width of the gap. For example, 40px would create a row gap of 40 pixels. Cannot be a negative value.

Note that <length-percentage> is equivalent to [ <length> | <percentage> ]. In other words, you can provide a <length> or <percentage> value.

normal

Represents a used value of 0px.

In addition, all CSS properties also accept the following CSS-wide keyword values as the sole component of their property value:

initial

Represents the value specified as the property's initial value.

inherit

Represents the computed value of the property on the element's parent.

unset

This value acts as either inherit or initial, depending on whether the property is inherited or not. In other words, it sets all properties to their parent value if they are inheritable or to their initial value if not inheritable.

Basic Property Information

History of row-gap & grid-row-gap

The CSS Grid Layout module was originally written with its own set of gutter properties (grid-gap, grid-column-gap, and grid-row-gap). Those properties were later unified into the row-gap/column-gap/gap naming, which also expanded the scope to include flexbox containers, grid containers and multi-column containers.

For compatibility purposes, those grid-* property names are now aliases for the properties with the new names.

Specifically:

• grid-column-gap is an alias for column-gap
• grid-row-gap is an alias for row-gap
• grid-gap is an alias for gap

CSS Specifications

The row-gap property is defined in CSS Box Alignment Module Level 3 (W3C Working Draft, 21 April 2020).

Vendor Prefixes

For maximum browser compatibility many web developers add browser-specific properties by using extensions such as -webkit- for Safari, Google Chrome, and Opera (newer versions), -ms- for Internet Explorer, -moz- for Firefox, -o- for older versions of Opera etc. As with any CSS property, if a browser doesn't support a proprietary extension, it will simply ignore it.

This practice is not recommended by the W3C, however in many cases, the only way you can test a property is to include the CSS extension that is compatible with your browser.

The major browser manufacturers generally strive to adhere to the W3C specifications, and when they support a non-prefixed property, they typically remove the prefixed version. Also, W3C advises vendors to remove their prefixes for properties that reach Candidate Recommendation status.

Many developers use Autoprefixer, which is a postprocessor for CSS. Autoprefixer automatically adds vendor prefixes to your CSS so that you don't need to. It also removes old, unnecessary prefixes from your CSS.

You can also use Autoprefixer with preprocessors such as Less and Sass.