Use text-align:justify on the container, this way it will 3 work no matter how many elements you have 2 in your list (you don't have to work out 1 % widths for each list item

    #nav {
        text-align: justify;
        min-width: 500px;
    }
    #nav:after {
        content: '';
        display: inline-block;
        width: 100%;
    }
    #nav li {
        display: inline-block;
    }

<ul id="nav">
    <li><a href="#">HOME</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">ABOUT</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">BASIC SERVICES</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">OUR STAFF</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">CONTACT US</a></li>
</ul>

FIDDLE

This one really works. Also has the benefit 4 that you can use media queries to easily 3 turn off the horizontal style — for instance 2 if you want to stack them vertically when 1 on mobile phone.

HTML

<ul id="nav">
    <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
</ul>

CSS

​
#nav {
    display: table;
    height: 87px;
    width: 100%;
}

#nav li {
    display: table-cell;
    height: 87px;
    width: 16.666666667%;  /* (100 / numItems)% */
    line-height: 87px;
    text-align: center;
    background: #ddd;
    border-right: 1px solid #fff;
    white-space: nowrap;
}​

@media (max-width: 767px) {
    #nav li {
        display: block;
        width: 100%;
    }
}

http://jsfiddle.net/timshutes/eCPSh/416/

if you can, use flexbox:

<ul>
    <li>HOME</li>
    <li>ABOUT US</li>
    <li>SERVICES</li>
    <li>PREVIOUS PROJECTS</li>
    <li>TESTIMONIALS</li>
    <li>NEWS</li>
    <li>RESEARCH &amp; DEV</li>
    <li>CONTACT</li>
</ul>

ul {
  display: flex;
  justify-content:space-between;
  list-style-type: none;
}

jsfiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/RAaJ8/

Browser 2 support is actually quite good (with prefixes 1 an other nasty stuff): http://caniuse.com/flexbox

An ideal solution will:

1. Automatically scale to the width of the navigation container
2. Support a dynamic number of menu items.

Using a simple ul menu 11 inside of an nav container, we can build a 10 solution that meets the above requirements.

HTML

<nav>
  <ul>
    <li>Home</li>
    <li>About</li>
    <li>Basic Services</li>
    <li>Specialty Services</li>
    <li>Our Staff</li>
    <li>Contact Us</li>
  </ul>
</nav>

First, we 9 need to force the ul to have the full width 8 of its nav container. To accomplish this, we 7 will use the :after psuedo-element with width: 100%.

This 6 achieves our goal perfectly, but adds trailing 5 whitespace from the psuedo-element. We 4 can remove this whitespace across all browsers 3 through IE8 by setting the line-height of the ul to 0 2 and setting it back to 100% on its li children. See 1 the example CodePen and solution below:

CSS

nav {
  width: 900px;
}

nav ul {
  text-align: justify;
  line-height: 0;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
}

nav ul:after {
  content: '';
  display: inline-block;
  width: 100%;
}

nav ul li {
  display: inline-block;
  line-height: 100%;
}

I tried all the above and found them wanting. This 9 is the simplest most flexible solution I 8 could figure out (thanks to all of the above 7 for inspiration).

HTML

<div id="container">
<ul>
    <li>HOME</li>
    <li>ABOUT US</li>
    <li>SERVICES</li>
    <li>PREVIOUS PROJECTS</li>
    <li>TESTIMONIALS</li>
    <li>NEWS</li>
    <li>RESEARCH &amp; DEV</li>
    <li>CONTACT</li>
</ul>
</div>

CSS

div#container{
  width:900px;
  background-color:#eee;
    padding:20px;
}
ul {
    display:table;
    width: 100%;
    margin:0 0;
    -webkit-padding-start:0px; /* reset chrome default */
}
ul li {
    display:table-cell;
    height:30px;
    line-height:30px;
    font-size:12px;    
    padding:20px 10px;
    text-align: center;
    background-color:#999;
    border-right:2px solid #fff;
}
ul li:first-child {
    border-radius:10px 0 0 10px;
}
ul li:last-child {
    border-radius:0 10px 10px 0;
    border-right:0 none;
}

You can drop the 6 first/last child-rounded ends, obviously, but 5 I think they're real purdy (and so does 4 your client ;)

The container width limits 3 the horizontal list, but you can ditch this 2 and just apply an absolute value to the 1 UL if you like.

Fiddle with it, if you like..

http://jsfiddle.net/tobyworth/esehY/1/

This should do it for you.

<div id="nav-wrap">
    <ul id="nav">
        <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
    </ul>
</div>

#nav-wrap {
    float: left;
    height: 87px;
    width: 900px;
}

#nav {
    display: inline;
    height: 87px;
    width: 100%;
}

.nav-item {
    float: left;
    height: 87px;
    line-height: 87px;
    text-align: center;
    text-decoration: none;
    width: 150px;

}

0

Have you tried setting the li width to, say, 16% with 3 a margin of 0.5%?

nav li {
  line-height: 87px;
  float: left;
  text-align: center;
  width: 16%;
  margin-right: 0.5%;
}

edit: I would set the UL 2 to 100% width:

nav ul { width: 100%; margin: 0 1 auto; }

This is the sort of thing that the CSS flexbox 3 model will fix, because it will let you 2 specify that each li will receive an equal 1 proportion of the remaining width.

I tried so many different things and finally 4 found what worked best for me was simply 3 adding in padding-right: 28px;

I played around with the padding 2 to get the right amount to evenly space 1 the items.

Instead of defining the width, you could 4 just put a margin-left on your li, so that 3 the spacing is consistent, and just make 2 sure the margin(s)+li fit within 900px.

nav li {
  line-height: 87px;
  float: left;
  text-align: center;
  margin-left: 35px;
}

Hope 1 this helps.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<style>
#container { width: 100%; border: 1px solid black; display: block; text-align: justify; }
object, span { display: inline-block; }
span { width: 100%; }
</style>
</head>

  <div id="container">
    <object>
      <div>
      alpha
      </div>
    </object>
    <object>
      <div>
      beta
      </div>
    </object>
    <object>
      <div>
      charlie
      </div>
    </object>
    <object>
      <div>
      delta
      </div>
    </object>
    <object>
      <div>
      epsilon
      </div>
    </object>
    <object>
      <div>
      foxtrot
      </div>
    </object>
    <span></span>
  </div>
</html>

0