Centering controls within a form in .NET (Winforms)?

Question

You could achieve this with the use of anchors. Or more precisely the non use of them.

Controls are anchored by default to the top left of the form which means when the form size will be changed, their distance from the top left side of the form will remain constant. If you change the control anchor to bottom left, then the control will keep the same distance from the bottom and left sides of the form when the form if resized.

Turning off the anchor in a direction will keep a control centered when resizing, if it is already centered. In general, a control not anchored maintains its proportional position to the dialog. E.g. If you put a control at X=75% of the dialog width and turn off left/right anchors, the control will maintain its center at X=75% of the dialog width.

NOTE: Turning off anchoring via the properties window in VS2015 may require entering None (instead of default Top,Left)

myControl.Left = (this.ClientSize.Width - myControl.Width) / 2 ;
myControl.Top = (this.ClientSize.Height - myControl.Height) / 2;

Since you don't state if the form can resize or not there is an easy way if you don't care about resizing (if you do care, go with Mitch Wheats solution):

Select the control -> Format (menu option) -> Center in Window -> Horizontally or Vertically

I found a great way to do this and it will work with multiple controls. Add a TableLayout with 3 columns. Make the center column an absolute size (however much room you need). Set the two outside columns to 100%. Add a Panel to the center column and add any controls you need and place them where you want. That center panel will now remain centered in your form.

To center Button in panel o in other container follow this step:

1. At design time set the position
2. Go to properties Anchor of the button and set this value as the follow image

You can put the control you want to center inside a Panel and set the left and right padding values to something larger than the default. As long as they are equal and your control is anchored to the sides of the Panel, then it will appear centered in that Panel. Then you can anchor the container Panel to its parent as needed.