CSS - Body And All Text On Page

Hi folks, don't usually post in the CSS forum here, but in the php forum I have got great help so give it a go. Basically I need to know how to center two divs on a page which themselves have float:left attribute.

When I set text-align:center on the body a couple of other divs aligned perfectly so I did not have to worry about different res's. But I need these two divs (leftnav and content) next to each other and acheived this by setting the float:left attribute. The CSS code is below, I hope you can help, i have tried but these two divs in one outer div (without any float set) but didn't work.

Code:

body
{
	font-family: "Lucida Sans";
	font-size: 12px;
	margin: 0px 0px 10px;
	border-top: 0px none #000000;
	border-right: 0px none #000000;
	border-bottom: 5px none #000000;
	border-left: 0px none #000000;
	scrollbar-arrow-color: #D20000;
	scrollbar-3dlight-color: #4F4F82;
	scrollbar-darkshadow-color: #4F4F82;
	scrollbar-face-color: #f4f4f0;
	scrollbar-highlight-color: #FFFFFF;
	scrollbar-shadow-color: #d0d0d0;
	scrollbar-track-color: #ffffff;
	text-align: center;
	display: block;
}


.leftnav {
	float: left;
	color: #000000;
	font-size: 12px;
	font-family: "Trebuchet MS";
	border-top: 1px solid #000000;
	border-right: 1px none #000000;
	border-bottom: 1px none #000000;
	border-left: 1px none #000000;
	padding: 0px;
	white-space: nowrap;
	width: 220px;
	margin: 10px 0px 0px 10px;
	clear: both;
	text-align: left;
}

.content {
	background-color: #FFFFFF;
	border-top-width: 1px;
	border-right-width: 1px;
	border-bottom-width: 1px;
	border-left-width: 1px;
	border-top-style: solid;
	border-right-style: solid;
	border-bottom-style: solid;
	border-left-style: solid;
	border-top-color: #000000;
	border-right-color: #000000;
	border-bottom-color: #000000;
	border-left-color: #000000;
	float: left;
	white-space: normal;
	margin-top: 10px;
	margin-left: 0px;
	margin-bottom: 10px;
	font-family: "Trebuchet MS";
	font-size: 13px;
	padding-right: 10px;
	padding-bottom: 10px;
	padding-left: 10px;
	width: 1000px;
	margin-right: 0%;
	list-style-type: none;
	text-align: left;

}

Thanks very much.

I posted something the other day, but that thread was elaborate but not helpful at all, because it missed a useful example with CSS sheet and everything. So here's another attempt and hopefully people know where the problem resides. I've stripped down the following page as far as I could within limited time.

Before you click and open this URL, I think it's best to read my introduction first, because the problem often only occurs the first time after opening IE5.5 or IE6.0.

With IE6.0 it might be that it _does_ work for you now. I notice that the bug is very infrequent with IE6.0. Sometimes it feels like IE6.0 cached the right page and doesn't want to show the wrong page the first time anymore. With IE5.5 it's still consistent on first time though... it will show the bug!

A refresh may fix the page. Which is basically like opening the page a second time.

http://www.stack.nl/~rem/problem.html

It's a page with 3 big sections: header, middle, footer. I've stripped the footer as far as possible and reduced the header. The footer stays at the bottom of the window/viewport or bottom of the page if the page is longer and requires scrolling.

What problem to look for? The news section to the right, it should have 2 identical blocks (in this example). But it cuts off the second block entirely and cuts the end of the first one. Basically where the form ends on the left side. On reload of the page the error will be "fixed".

By accident I stumbled upon this thread (<- link) where they also seem to discuss the cut off of contents when the regular body text is shorter than the float text. Though for me the problem only appears on the page with the form and not with other pages. They couldn't figure out the trigger or cause either and the thread stopped in 2002. I'm trying that <p></p><p></p> workaround...

If anybody knows some other workarounds or knows what triggers this problem. Feel free and invited to post any suggestion that can solve this matter. Adding more contents text is no option alas.

Note: as a new user it would not let me use a link(url)

Problem:when viewing in IE8 - the text looks grainy

notes:
Using this page as an example:
fineprintnotes.com/bergincapital1210/about-us-bergin-co-difference

-text looks smooth and easy to the eye when viewing in Firefox and Chrome
-text looks smooth when using the "compatibility view" feature in IE8 - but want that look as a default for visitors
-for example - when visiting other website using IE8 such as:

savantcapital.com
The text renders- when viewing in IE8- like Firefox and Chrome or in other words smooth and not grainy

-i have the same font face as that site and not sure what a fix could be
- read up on what possible fixes I could find on the internet - such as "emulate IE 7" tag

for example on this page: url blocked -- Welcome to Internet Explorer 8 Readiness Toolkit


Questions
- has anybody had this issue?
- i don't notice the savantcapital.com website defaulting to Ie7 (using emulate ie 7 tag - how does their text look cleaner than my website?
same goes for morganstanley.com (as another example)
- i find it hard to degrade the wesbite to fix the text issue- i am not sure if thats how to put it- but would like it to use a more DOM compliant browser like ie8 if it has option in stead of reverting to IE7 view. Any thought? or fixes?

Thanks in advance.

one other note: I tried to do screen shots but it wasn't communicating the issue - the images altered the drasticness of the difference - i feel - right now i have the website not emulating ie7

Jamie

Hi There,

Is it possible to highlight the current page without specifying a unique body id?

I have been asked to implement current page style on a dynamic site where it is not possible to do this.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,