The absolutely positioned elements offset a box in respect to its containing block. It affects no elements and their boxes around self, whether they are rendered in a normal flow, as floats or as other absolutely positioned boxes.

A box positioned in such a manner generates a new containing block for normal flow or absolutely positioned children or other descendant elements (except fixed descendants).

An absolutely positioned box may overlap other boxes or be overlapped by them, depending on the stacking level of the overlapping boxes.

To make an element or its box being positioned absolutely, the position property must be set to the value absolute or fixed.

The fixed positioned element is an absolutely positioned element except that its positions are establish by the viewport and such boxes (elements) will not move when the document is being scrolled.

The fixed position boxes are usually applied as quick links or main navigation shortcuts on a web page or perhaps to insert a signature to it.

To learn how to calculate proper clearance please read the article "calculating clearance for floating elements".

Example

CSS absolutely positioned elements in an example:

 

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