how can I remove the space between buttons on css menu

Question

I am new to css and html5 and trying to get my menu bar to work properly. It is a horizontal menu bar with drop down feature. Before I centered the menu bar there were no spaces between the nav buttons and the drop down buttons. After centering it they now have a space between them which is irritating because when you go between them, more so on the drop down, you lose the drop down menu because of the space. Therefore I am trying to remove the space (not the borders) between the buttons. Thank you very much for your help here is the code:

CSS

  /* START NAV MENU */

  nav {
  background-color:#333333;
  height:40px;
  width:100%;
  }


  nav ul {
  font-family: Sonoma, Arial;
  font-size: 20px;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  list-style: none;
  text-align:center;
  }

  nav ul li {
  display: inline-block;
  position: relative;

  }

  nav li ul { 
  display: none; 
  }

  nav ul li a {
  display: inline-block;
  text-decoration: none;
  background: #666666;
  color: #ffffff;  
  padding: 5px 20px 3px 15px;
  margin-left: 1px;
  white-space: nowrap;
  height:30px; /* Width and height of top-level nav items */
  width:90px;
  text-align:center;
  border-right: 3px solid black;
  border-left: 3px solid black;

  }

  nav ul li a:hover { 
  background: #999999; 
  }

  nav li:hover ul {
  display: block;
  position: absolute;
  height:30px;
  }

  nav li:hover li {
  float: none;
  font-size: 11px;

  }

  nav li:hover a { 
  background: #534635; 
  height:30px; /* Height of lower-level nav items is shorter than main level */
  }

  nav li:hover li a:hover { 
  background: #999999; 
  }

  nav ul li ul li a {
    text-align:left;
  }

  /* END NAV MENU */

HTML FOR NAV:

  <nav>
  <ul>
  <li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="/about">About Us</a>
    <ul>
        <li><a href="/crew">Our Crew</a></li>
        <li><a href="/history">History</a></li>
        <li><a href="/vision">Vision</a></li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li><a href="/products">Services</a>
    <ul>
        <li><a href="/carpentry">Carpentry</a></li>
        <li><a href="/waterproof">Waterproofing</a></li>
        <li><a href="/concrete">Concrete</a></li>
        <li><a href="/masonry">Masonry</a></li>
        <li><a href="/prop">Property Maintenance</a></li>
        <li><a href="/metal">Metal Construction</a></li>
        <li><a href="/design">Interior Design</a></li>
        <li><a href="/demo">Demo & Salvage</a></li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li><a href="/services">Portfolio</a>
  </li>          
  <li><a href="/contact">Contact</a>
    <ul>
        <li><a href="/email">Via Email</a></li>
        <li><a href="/contact_form">Web Form</a></li>
        <li><a href="/pigeon">Carrier Pigeon</a></li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  </ul>
  </nav>

if you could please explain what the changes are to make this happen and why it changes it I would greatly appreciate it thanks!

Answer 1

Floating is indeed one option but you have others that may be more preferable as they allow you to keep the inline-block style and its associated benefits.

Chris Coyier's article Fighting the Space Between Inline Block Elements http://css-tricks.com/fighting-the-space-between-inline-block-elements/ details each one, but in summary it's caused by the white space between your closing </li> and the next <li>.

Your options are as follows:

Remove the closing </li> from each list item.

<li><a href="/crew">Our Crew</a>
<li><a href="/history">History</a>
<li><a href="/vision">Vision</a>

It's valid HTML5 and won't break anything.

Delete the white space so your list markup is pretty much all on one line

<li><a href="/crew">Our Crew</a></li><li><a href="/history">History</a></li>
    <li><a href="/vision">Vision</a>

Comment out the whitespace

<li><a href="/crew">Our Crew</a></li><!--
--><li><a href="/history">History</a></li><!--
--><li><a href="/vision">Vision</a></li>

Set the font size of the parent to 0

ul {
    font-size: 0;
}

Set a negative right margin to close the gap

a {
    margin-right: -4px;
}

Personally I prefer removing the closing tag as the others look too messy and font-size: 0 doesn't work out too well when using relative sizes, but it's up to you, they're all good in their own way.