- From: Simon Sapin via GitHub <noreply@w3.org>
- Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:49:08 +0000
- To: public-css-archive@w3.org
SimonSapin has just created a new issue for https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts: == [css-flexbox] Baseline of inline-level flex container == Consider a test case like: ```html Text <span style="display: inline-flex; flex-flow:column"> <span>One</span> <span>Two</span> <span> ``` The baseline of "Text" is aligned with the baseline of the outer `span` which almost certainly should be the baseline of "One", but when strictly reading the letter of the spec I’m not sure it’s actually defined. https://drafts.csswg.org/css-flexbox-1/#flex-baselines > In order for a [flex container](https://drafts.csswg.org/css-flexbox-1/#flex-container) to itself [participate in baseline alignment](https://drafts.csswg.org/css-flexbox-1/#baseline-participation) (e.g. when the flex container is itself a [flex item](https://drafts.csswg.org/css-flexbox-1/#flex-item) in an outer flex container), it needs to submit the position of the baselines that will best represent its contents. "participates in baseline alignment" links to the definition of `align-self: baseline` which only applies to flex items. So as written, I believe this does not apply to the test case above where the flex container isn’t itself a flex item nor does it have any flex item ancestor. Later in this section there’s a special case for table cells: > When [determining the baseline of a table cell](https://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/tables.html#height-layout), a flex container provides a baseline just as a line box or table-row does. I don’t find a similar special case for `inline-flex`, but rather than add it I think it’d be better to rewrite the intro paragraph of this section to make it define the baseline of a flex container, for any purpose. (Including for the purpose of an ancestor flex item, table cell, or text line.) Perhaps reference https://drafts.csswg.org/css-align-3/#baseline-export for the concept. (Which by the way links back to `#flex-baselines`, suggesting this was already the intended meaning.) For comparison, Grid defines a baseline without limiting its purpose: https://drafts.csswg.org/css-grid-1/#grid-baselines > The first (last) baselines of a [grid container](https://drafts.csswg.org/css-grid-1/#grid-container) are determined as follows: Please view or discuss this issue at https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/13813 using your GitHub account -- Sent via github-notify-ml as configured in https://github.com/w3c/github-notify-ml-config
Received on Wednesday, 15 April 2026 15:49:09 UTC