horizontal line between circles with transparent background

Question

I'm trying to draw a horizontal line between empty circles (no background), How can I draw a line from one circle to other to match exactly without entering the other circle or not reach it?

I did the sample using codepen

 #wizard { background-color: #eee; display: inline-block; padding: 15px; } #wizard .step { display: inline-block; width: 40px; height: 40px; background-color: transparent; border: 1px solid #000; border-radius: 50%; text-align: center; padding: 2px; margin-right: 3em; margin-left: 3em; position: relative; } #wizard .step:after { content: ""; display: block; height: 1px; background-color: #000; position: absolute; left: auto; right: -100%; width: 100%; top: 50%; } #wizard .step:last-child:after { display: none; } #wizard .step span { padding: 11px; display: block; } 

 <div id="wizard"> <div class="step active"> <span>1</span> </div> <div class="step"> <span>2</span> </div> <div class="step"> <span>3</span> </div> </div> 

Answer 1

Since your margin-right and margin-left are both 3em , try using 6em instead of 100%

 left:auto;
 right:-6em;
 width:6em;

That leaves a little space, but you can tweak it:

right:-6.3em;
width:6.3em;

Answer 2

If you're going to absolutely position your #wizard .step::after pseudo-element, you need to know 2 things:

1. Where it should begin
2. How long it should be

You can see where it should begin, given that your #wizard .step has a border of 1px , a padding of 2px and a content width of 40px .

1px + 2px + 40px + 2px + 1px = 46px

So your position styles need to include left: 46px :

#wizard .step::after {
position: absolute;
top: 50%;
left: 46px;
}

As for how long it needs to be, it needs to span the margin-right of the current #wizard .step and then the margin-left of the next #wizard .step .

Since these are both 3em , you can give it your #wizard .step::after pseudo-element a width of 6em .

Putting it all together:

 #wizard { background-color: #eee; display:inline-block; padding:15px; } #wizard .step { display: inline-block; width: 40px; height: 40px; background-color: transparent; border: 1px solid #000; border-radius: 50%; text-align: center; padding: 2px; margin-right: 3em; margin-left: 3em; position: relative; } #wizard .step::after { content: ''; display: block; position: absolute; top: 50%; left: 46px; width: 6em; height: 1px; background-color: #000; } #wizard .step:last-child::after { display:none; } #wizard .step span { padding: 11px; display: block; } 

 <div id="wizard"> <div class="step active"> <span>1</span> </div> <div class="step"> <span>2</span> </div> <div class="step"> <span>3</span> </div> </div> 

---

NB It's really not clear to me why, but though the result from the approach above should be flawless, the actual result includes tiny gaps - giving every impression of being from a 1950s text-book.

If you want to eliminate these gaps, use the following style declarations, instead:

#wizard .step::after {
left: 45px;
width: 6.3em;
}