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Whenever I format a website according to a PSD file,
I always wonder if the space should be from the top element or the bottom one.

So if I have 2 elements that are seperated by some space, I normally choose
the top one, but I can't find a real reason not to choose the one on the bottom.

Any ideas?

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    Could you edit your question to include a simple code example that shows the two elements you're trying to lay out? It's hard to tell exactly what you're asking at present.
    – Nick
    Jul 7, 2011 at 14:31

2 Answers 2

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I would typically add it to the upper element as padding-bottom:10px (or whatever whitespace size you need.

I find that I typically want "any content after this" to be a certain distance away. very rarely do I find the reverse ideal. (although its an easy modification if needed)

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    Be also aware of margin-collapsing, which allows to add the space to both elements.
    – feeela
    Jul 7, 2011 at 23:34
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If it's always the same two elements as siblings (for example, a header div followed by a menu div at the top of each page), then there is no difference between adding margin-bottom (or padding) to the top vs. adding margin-top to the bottom.

OTOH, if the elements in question sometimes appear elsewhere in the document (for example, an H2 can be an article title followed by a byline in one place or a subheading followed by a paragraph elsewhere), then the answer will depend on how you need them to behave in each of the places.

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