How can I center Twitter-Bootstrap 3 navbar links?

Question

How can I center the buttons in the jsFiddle I set up so that the buttons are equally spaced and centered within and through-out the navbar?

http://jsfiddle.net/3GQyq/3/

I have tried different methods such as

display:inline-block;margin:0 auto; text-align:center;

But I cannot get it to work.

If you could give a little explanation instead of just fixing the CSS as I want to learn so I do not have to keep coming back here.

EDIT:

Just like how they are centered here ^.

Answer 1

Bootstrap 3 has a nav-justified class that can be used on nav. No extra CSS required:

<div class="container">
  <h3 class="text-muted">Project name</h3>
  <ul class="nav nav-justified">
    <li class="active"><a href="#">Home</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Projects</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Services</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Downloads</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">About</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
  </ul>
</div>

Demo: http://bootply.com/72519

---

Based on the comments, to have full-width centered links using the navbar-nav class, use flexbox...

.navbar-center {
    width:100%;
    display: flex;
}
.navbar-center>li {
    flex:1 1 auto;
}

<div class="navbar navbar-default">
    <div class="container">
        <ul class="nav navbar-nav navbar-center text-center">
            <li class="active"><a href="#">Home</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">More</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">Options</a></li>
        </ul>
    </div>
</div>

https://www.codeply.com/go/6ZE3obnpuP

---

Also see
Bootstrap NavBar with left, center or right aligned items
Center Navbar in Bootstrap

Answer 2

Add the style

.nav{
    text-align: center;
}

This will center the text in li.

Check Fiddle

These styles should be sufficient. You were trying to apply styles to to the wrong element.

// This is being applied by the bootstrap
// Set it to 25px instead of the default 15px
.navbar{
    padding : 0 25px;
}

// Gave a width of 110px for each li
// as the container is following a fixed width format
li{
    width:110px;
}