How can an html element fill out 100% of the remaining screen height, using css only?

HtmlCss

Html Problem Overview

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?

Html Solutions

Solution 1 - Html

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 - Html

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 - Html

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 - Html

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 - Html

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.

Solution 6 - Html

With HTML5 you can do this:

CSS:

body, html{ width:100%; height:100%; padding: 0; margin: 0;}
header{ width:100%; height: 70px; }
section{ width: 100%; height: calc(100% - 70px);}

HTML:

<header>blabablalba </header>
<section> Content </section>

Solution 7 - Html

For me, the next worked well:

I wrapped the header and the content on a div

<div class="main-wrapper">
    <div class="header">

    </div>
    <div class="content">

    </div>
</div>

I used this https://css-tricks.com/boxes-fill-height-dont-squish/">reference</a> to fill the height with flexbox. The CSS goes like this:

.main-wrapper {
    display: flex;
    flex-direction: column;
    min-height: 100vh;
}
.header {
    flex: 1;
}
.content {
    flex: 1;
}

For more info about the flexbox technique, visit the https://css-tricks.com/boxes-fill-height-dont-squish/">reference</a>

Solution 8 - Html

Please let me add my 5 cents here and offer a classical solution:

html {height:100%;}
body {height:100%; margin:0;}
#idOuter {position:relative; width:100%; height:100%;}
#idHeader {position:absolute; left:0; right:0; border:solid 3px red;}
#idContent {position:absolute; overflow-y:scroll; left:0; right:0; border:solid 3px green;}


<div id="idOuter">
  <div id="idHeader" style="height:30px; top:0;">Header section</div>
  <div id="idContent" style="top:36px; bottom:0;">Content section</div>
</div>

This will work in all browsers, no script, no flex. Open snippet in full page mode and resize browser: desired proportions are preserved even in fullscreen mode.

Note:

  • Elements with different background color can actually cover each other. Here I used solid border to ensure that elements are placed correctly.
  • idHeader.height and idContent.top are adjusted to include border, and should have the same value if border is not used. Otherwise elements will pull out of the viewport, since calculated width does not include border, margin and/or padding.
  • left:0; right:0; can be replaced by width:100% for the same reason, if no border used.
  • Testing in separate page (not as a snippet) does not require any html/body adjustment.
  • In IE6 and earlier versions we must add padding-top and/or padding-bottom attributes to #idOuter element.

To complete my answer, here is the footer layout:

html {height:100%;}
body {height:100%; margin:0;}
#idOuter {position:relative; width:100%; height:100%;}
#idContent {position:absolute; overflow-y:scroll; left:0; right:0; border:solid 3px green;}
#idFooter {position:absolute; left:0; right:0; border:solid 3px blue;}


<div id="idOuter">
  <div id="idContent" style="bottom:36px; top:0;">Content section</div>
  <div id="idFooter" style="height:30px; bottom:0;">Footer section</div>
</div>

And here is the layout with both header and footer:

html {height:100%;}
body {height:100%; margin:0;}
#idOuter {position:relative; width:100%; height:100%;}
#idHeader {position:absolute; left:0; right:0; border:solid 3px red;}
#idContent {position:absolute; overflow-y:scroll; left:0; right:0; border:solid 3px green;}
#idFooter {position:absolute; left:0; right:0; border:solid 3px blue;}


<div id="idOuter">
  <div id="idHeader" style="height:30px; top:0;">Header section</div>
  <div id="idContent" style="top:36px; bottom:36px;">Content section</div>
  <div id="idFooter" style="height:30px; bottom:0;">Footer section</div>
</div>

Solution 9 - Html

You can also set the parent to display: inline. See http://codepen.io/tommymarshall/pen/cECyH

Be sure to also have the height of html and body set to 100%, too.

Solution 10 - Html

The accepted answer does not work. And the highest voted answer does not answer the actual question. With a fixed pixel height header, and a filler in the remaining display of the browser, and scroll for owerflow. Here is a solution that actually works, using absolute positioning. I also assume that the height of the header is known, by the sound of "fixed header" in the question. I use 150px as an example here:

HTML:

<html>
    <body>
        <div id="Header">
        </div>
        <div id="Content">      
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

CSS:(adding background-color for visual effect only)

#Header
{
    height: 150px;
    width: 100%;
    background-color: #ddd;
}
#Content
{
   position: absolute;
   width: 100%;
   top: 150px;
   bottom: 0;
   background-color: #aaa;
   overflow-y: scroll;
}

For a more detailed look how this works, with actual content inside the #Content, have a look at this jsfiddle, using bootstrap rows and columns.

Solution 11 - Html

In this instance I want my main content div to be liquid height so that the whole page takes up 100% of the browser height.

height: 100vh;

Solution 12 - Html

CSS PLaY | cross browser fixed header/footer/centered single column layout

CSS Frames, version 2: Example 2, specified width | 456 Berea Street

One important thing is that although this sounds easy, there's going to be quite a bit of ugly code going into your CSS file to get an effect like this. Unfortunately, it really is the only option.

Solution 13 - Html

Unless you need to support IE 9 and below, I would use flexbox

body { display: flex; flex-direction: column; }
.header { height: 70px; }
.content { flex: 1 1 0 }

You also need to get body to fill the whole page

body, html{ width:100%; height:100%; padding: 0; margin: 0;}

Solution 14 - Html

#Header
{
width: 960px;
height: 150px;
}

#Content
{
min-height:100vh;
height: 100%;
width: 960px;
}

Solution 15 - Html

The best solution I found so far is setting a footer element at the bottom of the page and then evaluate the difference of the offset of the footer and the element we need to expand. e.g.

The html file
<div id="contents"></div>
<div id="footer"></div>
The css file
#footer {
    position: fixed;
    bottom: 0;
    width: 100%;
}
The js file (using jquery)
var contents = $('#contents'); 
var footer = $('#footer');
contents.css('height', (footer.offset().top - contents.offset().top) + 'px');

You might also like to update the height of the contents element on each window resize, so...

$(window).on('resize', function() {
  contents.css('height', (footer.offset().top -contents.offset().top) + 'px');
});

Solution 16 - Html

Have you tried something like this?

CSS:

.content {
    height: 100%;
    display: block;
}

HTML:

<div class=".content">
<!-- Content goes here -->
</div>
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QuestionHarryView Question on Stackoverflow
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