How to place div side by side

I have a main wrapper div that is set 100% width. Inside that i would like to have two divs, one that is fixed width and the other that fills the rest of the space. How do i float the second div to fill the rest of the space. Thanks for any help.


There are many ways to do what you're asking for:

  1. Using CSS float property:

 <div style="width: 100%; overflow: hidden;">
     <div style="width: 600px; float: left;"> Left </div>
     <div style="margin-left: 620px;"> Right </div>
</div>
  1. Using CSS display property - which can be used to make divs act like a table:

<div style="width: 100%; display: table;">
    <div style="display: table-row">
        <div style="width: 600px; display: table-cell;"> Left </div>
        <div style="display: table-cell;"> Right </div>
    </div>
</div>

There are more methods, but those two are the most popular.


CSS3 introduced flexible boxes (aka. flex box) which can also achieve this behavior.

Simply define the width of the first div, and then give the second a flex-grow value of 1 which will allow it to fill the remaining width of the parent.

.container{
    display: flex;
}
.fixed{
    width: 200px;
}
.flex-item{
    flex-grow: 1;
}
<div class="container">
  <div class="fixed"></div>
  <div class="flex-item"></div>
</div>

Demo:

div {
    color: #fff;
    font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Segoe, sans-serif;
    padding: 10px;
}
.container {
    background-color:#2E4272;
    display:flex;
}
.fixed {
    background-color:#4F628E;
    width: 200px;
}
.flex-item {
    background-color:#7887AB;
    flex-grow: 1;
}
<div class="container">
    <div class="fixed">Fixed width</div>
    <div class="flex-item">Dynamically sized content</div>
</div>

Note that flex boxes are not backwards compatible with old browsers, but is a great option for targeting modern browsers (see also Caniuse and MDN). A great comprehensive guide on how to use flex boxes is available on CSS Tricks.