How to get Floating DIVs inside fixed-width DIV to continue horizontally?

Solution 1:

div#container {
    height: 275px;
    width: 1000px;
    overflow: auto;
    white-space: nowrap;
}

div#container span.block {
    width: 300px;
    display: inline-block;
}

The trick here is only elements that behave as inline by default will behave properly when set to inline-block in Internet Explorer, so the inner containers need to be <span> instead of <div>.

Solution 2:

#row {
    white-space: nowrap; /* important */
    overflow: auto;
}

.items {
    display: inline-block;
}

<div id="row">
    <div class="items">
        <img src="//placehold.it/200/100" alt="item 1" />
    </div>
    <div class="items">
        <img src="//placehold.it/200/100" alt="item 2" />
    </div>
    <div class="items">
        <img src="//placehold.it/200/100" alt="item 3" />
    </div>
    <div class="items">
        <img src="//placehold.it/200/100" alt="item 4" />
    </div>
    <div class="items">
        <img src="//placehold.it/200/100" alt="item 5" />
    </div>
    <div class="items">
        <img src="//placehold.it/200/100" alt="item 6" />
    </div>
    <div class="items">
        <img src="//placehold.it/200/100" alt="item 7" />
    </div>
    <div class="items">
        <img src="//placehold.it/200/100" alt="item 8" />
    </div>
    <div class="items">
        <img src="//placehold.it/200/100" alt="item 9" />
    </div>
    <div class="items">
        <img src="//placehold.it/200/100" alt="item 10" />
    </div>
</div>

The trick here is the "white-space: nowrap" property of the parent which simply tells all it's child elements to continue horizontally and the "display: inline-block" property of it's children. You don't need to add any other property to make this work.

JS Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/2c4jfetf/

Solution 3:

You need an extra div with a large width to contain the blocks, then they will extend wider than the container div and not drop down to a new line.

The HTML:

<div id="container">
    <div id="width">
        <div class="block">
            <!-- contents of block -->
        </div>
        <div class="block">
            <!-- contents of block -->
        </div>
        <div class="block">
            <!-- contents of block -->
        </div>
        <!-- more blocks here -->
    </div>
</div>

The CSS:

#container {
    height: 275px;
    width: 1000px;
    overflow-x: auto;
    overflow-y: hidden;
    max-height: 275px;
}
#container #width {
    width:2000px; /* make this the width you need for x number of blocks */
}
#container div.block {
    float: left;
    margin: 3px 90px 0 3px;
}

Solution 4:

Wrap your floated divs in another div with the wider width.

<div style="width:230px;overflow-x:auto;background-color:#ccc;">
    <div style="width:400px">
        <div style="height:100px;width:100px;float:left;border:1px solid #000;"></div>
        <div style="height:100px;width:100px;float:left;border:1px solid #000;"></div>
        <div style="height:100px;width:100px;float:left;border:1px solid #000;"></div>
    </div>
</div>