How can an html element fill out 100% of the remaining screen height, using css only?
I have a header element and a content element:
#header
#content
I want the header to be of fixed height and the content to fill up all the remaining height available on the screen, with overflow-y: scroll;.
It this possible without Javascript?
Solution 1:
forget all the answers, this line of CSS worked for me in 2 seconds :
height:100vh;
1vh = 1% of browser screen height
source
For responsive layout scaling, you might want to use :
min-height: 100vh
[update november 2018] As mentionned in the comments, using the min-height might avoid having issues on reponsive designs
[update april 2018] As mentioned in the comments, back in 2011 when the question was asked, not all browsers supported the viewport units.
The other answers were the solutions back then -- vmax is still not supported in IE, so this might not be the best solution for all yet.
Solution 2:
The trick to this is specifying 100% height on the html and body elements. Some browsers look to the parent elements (html, body) to calculate the height.
<html>
<body>
<div id="Header">
</div>
<div id="Content">
</div>
</body>
</html>
html, body
{
height: 100%;
}
#Header
{
width: 960px;
height: 150px;
}
#Content
{
height: 100%;
width: 960px;
}
Solution 3:
Actually the best approach is this:
html {
height:100%;
}
body {
min-height:100%;
}
This solves everything for me and it helps me to control my footer and it can have the fixed footer no matter if page is being scrolled down.
Technical Solution - EDITED
Historically, 'height' is tricky thing to mold with, compared to 'width', the easiest. Since css focus on <body> for styling to work. The code above - we gave <html> and <body> a height. This is where magic comes into picture - since we have 'min-height' on playing table, we are telling browser that <body> is superior over <html> because <body> holds the min-height. This in turn, allows <body> to override <html> because <html> had height already earlier. In other words, we are tricking browser to "bump" <html> off the table, so we could style independently.
Solution 4:
You can use vh on the min-height property.
min-height: 100vh;
You can do as follows, depending on how you are using the margins...
min-height: calc(100vh - 10px) //Considering you're using some 10px margin top on an outside element
Solution 5:
The accepted solution will not actually work.
You will notice that the content div will be equal to the height of its parent, body.
So setting the body height to 100% will set it equal to the height of the browser window. Let's say the browser window was 768px in height, by setting the content div height to 100%, the div's height will in turn be 768px. Thus, you will end up with the header div being 150px and the content div being 768px. In the end you will have content 150px below the bottom of the page. For another solution, check out this link.