I would never think this is possible, but there are a lot of clever people here so I thought I'd ask. I'm looking for a way to have a full-height container whose width depends on how much content there is. I want the text to fill the area taking up the full height while using the smallest possible width. The height is known and hard-coded, the amount of content is not.

I'm working with something like this:

<div>
    <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry.
    Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s,
    when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled....</p>
</div>

div {
    background:red url(/);
    float:left;
    width:600px;
    height:400px;
}
p {
    background:#fff;
    padding:20px;
    margin:20px;
}

Normally content fills the page from top to bottom:

What I'm looking for is sort of the opposite, filling in left-to-right:

With less content, it should look like this:

Using full hard-coded height with width:auto produces this effect:

Is there any way to have the text fill the height with the smallest possible width, without hard-coding a width or having text overflow? It seems impossible and I have no idea how to approach it. Javascript/jQuery solutions wele.

I would never think this is possible, but there are a lot of clever people here so I thought I'd ask. I'm looking for a way to have a full-height container whose width depends on how much content there is. I want the text to fill the area taking up the full height while using the smallest possible width. The height is known and hard-coded, the amount of content is not.

I'm working with something like this:

<div>
    <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry.
    Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s,
    when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled....</p>
</div>

div {
    background:red url(http://lorempixel./600/400/);
    float:left;
    width:600px;
    height:400px;
}
p {
    background:#fff;
    padding:20px;
    margin:20px;
}

Normally content fills the page from top to bottom:

What I'm looking for is sort of the opposite, filling in left-to-right:

With less content, it should look like this:

Using full hard-coded height with width:auto produces this effect:

Is there any way to have the text fill the height with the smallest possible width, without hard-coding a width or having text overflow? It seems impossible and I have no idea how to approach it. Javascript/jQuery solutions wele.

• javascript
• jquery
• html
• css

• So the more there is content, the more your text container will be wide ? – Stphane Commented Mar 5, 2013 at 15:24
• 1 Right. The text should fill the container and be full height with as little width as possible. – No Results Found Commented Mar 5, 2013 at 15:25
• Related : stackoverflow./questions/9864123/… – Milche Patern Commented Mar 5, 2013 at 15:26

5 Answers 5

What I have in mind is a simple jQuery solution: in a while loop, set the condition such that the loop is run whenever the height exceeds the container height. In the loop, you increase the width of <p> pixel by pixel until the height no longer exceeds container height :)

$(document).ready(function() {
    // The 400-80 is because you have to subtract the container padding and the element's own padding
    while($("div > p").height() > 400 - 80) {
        currentWidth = $("div > p").width();
        $("div > p").width(currentWidth + 1);    
    }
});

http://jsfiddle/teddyrised/RwczR/4/

I have made some changes to your CSS, too:

div {
    background:red url(http://lorempixel./600/400/);
    float:left;
    overflow: hidden;
    width:600px;
    height:400px;
    padding: 20px;
    box-sizing: border-box;
}
p {
    background:#fff;
    padding: 20px;
    width: 1px;
}

This is not too difficult to do with JavaScript. I have no idea how to do it without JS (if that's even possible).

You can use another "invisible" div to measure dimensions until it gets to the 320px height while reducing its with by a set amount (even 1 pixel at a time, if you want to be as precise as possible).

var $measurer = $("<div>").css({'position': 'fixed', 'top': '100%'})
    .text($("p").text()).appendTo('body');

var escape = 0;
while ($measurer.height() < 320) {
    console.log($measurer.height());
    $measurer.width(function (_, width) { return width - 1; });
    console.log($measurer.width());
    escape++;
    if (escape > 2000) {
        break;
    }
}
$("p").width($measurer.width());
$measurer.remove();

http://jsfiddle/RwczR/2/

Try this:

var p = $('p');
var height = parseInt(p.height())-40;
p.height('auto');
p.width('auto');
for(var i=p.width(); i--; ) {
    p.width(i);
    if (p.height() > height) {
        p.height(height+20);
        p.width(i-1);
        break;
    }
}
p.height(height);

http://jsfiddle/RwczR/6/

You can use jQuery/JavaScript and checking the client vs the scroll heights keep increasing the width until it fits the text, similar to the below.

You need to also set overflow: hidden; in the CSS on the p tag for the scrollHeight to give you the actual height including the overflow.

The below code also takes margin and padding into account for both; height and width and adjusts accordingly.

Changing the height of the outer div ajdust accordingly.

$(document).ready(function(){
    var $container = $("div");
    var containerHeight = $container.height();
    var containerWidth = $container.width();

    var $textWrapper = $(">p", $container);

    var paddingMarginHeight = $textWrapper.outerHeight(true) - $textWrapper.innerHeight();
    var paddingMarginWidth = $textWrapper.outerWidth(true) - $textWrapper.innerWidth();

    $textWrapper.innerHeight(containerHeight - paddingMarginHeight);

    //SetMinWidth();
    var maxWidth = containerWidth - paddingMarginWidth;
    var visibleHeight = 0;
    var actualHeight = 0;

    for(i = 50; i <= maxWidth; i++){
        $textWrapper.innerWidth(i);

        visibleHeight = $textWrapper[0].clientHeight;
        actualHeight = $textWrapper[0].scrollHeight;

        if(visibleHeight >= actualHeight){
            break;
            console.log("ouyt");
        }
    }
});

DEMO - Grow width until text is fully visible

We can give the paragraph an overflow:auto;.

If the paragraph needs a vertical scroll bar, it will create one.

The trick is to keep tightening the width, until the scroll bar is created.

var hasScrollBar = false;
var p = document.getElementById('myParagraph');
while(!hasScrollBar)
{
    if(p.scrollHeight>p.clientHeight)
    {
        //Has Scroll Bar
        //Re-Increase Width by 1 Pixel
        hasScrollBar=true;
        p.style.width=(p.clientWidth+1)+"px";
    }
    else
    {
       //Still no Scroll Bar
       //Decrease Width
       p.style.width=(p.clientWidth-1)+"px";
    }
}