CSS Positioning anchor inside li vertically aligned

Question

I'm making a horizontal navigation menu, and i want to center vertically the anchors inside the divs using CSS, what i have is this:

<nav id="header-nav">
    <ul id="menu-header-menu" class="dropdown dropdown-horizontal">
        <li id="menu-item-24" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page">
            <a href="http://localhost/rototec.com.co/pagina-ejemplo/">
                Inicio
            </a>
        </li>
        <li id="menu-item-23" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page">
            <a href="http://localhost/rototec.com.co/filosofia-y-politicas-de-calidad/">
                Filosofía y políticas de calidad</strong>
            </a>
        </li>
        <li id="menu-item-22" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page">
            <a href="http://localhost/rototec.com.co/catalogo-de-productos/">
                Catálogo de productos
            </a>
        </li>
        <li id="menu-item-21" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page">
            <a href="http://localhost/rototec.com.co/proceso-de-rotomoldeo/">
                Proceso de rotomoldeo
            </a>
        </li>
        <li id="menu-item-20" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page">
            <a href="http://localhost/rototec.com.co/contacto/">
                Contacto
            </a>
        </li>
        <li id="menu-item-19" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page">
            <a href="http://localhost/rototec.com.co/preguntas-frecuentes/">
                Preguntas frecuentes
            </a>
        </li>
    </ul>
</nav>

Right now all line heights (a, li and ul) are 15, my UL height is 45 and so is the li... the anchor height is not set, how can i make them center vertically?

This is my CSS:

ul.dropdown {
    font: bold 12px tt0142m, FuturaM, "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;
    text-transform: uppercase;
    display: block;
    height: 45px;
    padding: 0px;
    line-height: 15px;
    vertical-align: bottom;
/*  border: 1px solid green; */
}
ul.dropdown li {
    padding: 0px;
    margin: 0px;
}
ul.dropdown a {
    text-decoration: none;
    vertical-align: middle;
    color: #000;
}

ul.dropdown li {
    word-wrap: break-word;
    width: 120px;
    text-align: center;
    font: FuturaM;
    border-left: 2px solid #000;
    line-height: 15px;
    height: 45px;
}
ul.dropdown > li:last-child {
    border-right: 2px solid black;
}
ul.dropdown li a {
    display: block;
    position: relative;
    text-align: center;
    vertical-align: middle;
    color: #000;
    font-weight: bold;
}

By the way, right now all the links are vertically aligned at the top

Answer 1

One way is to change the display type to table and then force heights on the elements

ul.dropdown li {
display: table;
min-height: 45px;
}
ul.dropdown li a {
display: table-cell;
height: 45px;
vertical-align: middle;
}

The problem with doing it like this is that IE7 and ie6 need some special styling

ul.dropdown li {
position: relative;
display: block;
}
ul.dropdown li a {
position: absolute;
top: 50%;
display: block;
}
ul.dropdown li a <new extra element that you do not yet have> {
position: relative;
top: -50%;
}