How can I make a TextArea 100% width without overflowing when padding is present in CSS?

HtmlCssStylesheet

Html Problem Overview

I have the following CSS and HTML snippet being rendered.

textarea
{
  border:1px solid #999999;
  width:100%;
  margin:5px 0;
  padding:3px;
}


<div style="display: block;" id="rulesformitem" class="formitem">
  <label for="rules" id="ruleslabel">Rules:</label>
  <textarea cols="2" rows="10" id="rules"/>
</div>

Is the problem is that the text area ends up being 8px wider (2px for border + 6px for padding) than the parent. Is there a way to continue to use border and padding but constrain the total size of the textarea to the width of the parent?

Html Solutions

Solution 1 - Html

Why not forget the hacks and just do it with CSS?

One I use frequently:

.boxsizingBorder {
    -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;
       -moz-box-sizing: border-box;
            box-sizing: border-box;
}

See browser support here.

Solution 2 - Html

The answer to many CSS formatting problems seems to be "add another <div>!"

So, in that spirit, have you tried adding a wrapper div to which the border/padding are applied and then putting the 100% width textarea inside of that? Something like (untested):

textarea
{
  width:100%;
}
.textwrapper
{
  border:1px solid #999999;
  margin:5px 0;
  padding:3px;
}


<div style="display: block;" id="rulesformitem" class="formitem">
  <label for="rules" id="ruleslabel">Rules:</label>
  <div class="textwrapper"><textarea cols="2" rows="10" id="rules"/></div>
</div>

Solution 3 - Html

let's consider the final output rendered to the user of what we want to achieve: a padded textarea with both a border and a padding, which characteristics are that being clicked they pass the focus to our textarea, and the advantage of an automatic 100% width typical of block elements.

The best approach in my opinion is to use low level solutions as far as possible, to reach the maximum browsers support. In this case the only HTML could work fine, avoiding the use of Javascript (which anyhow we all love).

The LABEL tag comes in our help because has such behaviour and is allowed to contain the input elements it must address to. Its default style is the one of inline elements, so, giving to the label a block display style we can avail ourselves of the automatic 100% width including padding and borders, while the inner textarea has no border, no padding and a 100% width.

Taking a look at the W3C specifics other advantages we may notice are:

  • no "for" attribute is needed: when a LABEL tag contains the target input, it automatically focuses the child input when clicked;
  • if an external label for the textarea has already been designed, no conflicts occur, since a given input may have one or more labels.

See W3C specifics for more detailed information.

Simple example:

.container { 
  width: 400px; 
  border: 3px 
  solid #f7c; 
  }
.textareaContainer {
	display: block;
	border: 3px solid #38c;
	padding: 10px;
  }
textarea { 
  width: 100%; 
  margin: 0; 
  padding: 0; 
  border-width: 0; 
  }


<body>
<div class="container">
	I am the container
	<label class="textareaContainer">
		<textarea name="text">I am the padded textarea with a styled border...</textarea>
	</label>
</div>
</body>

The padding and border of the .textareaContainer elements are the ones we want to give to the textarea. Try editing them to style it as you want. I gave large and visible padding and borders to the .textareaContainer element to let you see their behaviour when clicked.

Solution 4 - Html

If you're not too bothered about the width of the padding, this solution will actually keep the padding in percentages too..

textarea
{
    border:1px solid #999999;
    width:98%;
    margin:5px 0;
    padding:1%;
}

Not perfect, but you'll get some padding and the width adds up to 100% so its all good

Solution 5 - Html

I came across another solution here that is so simple: add padding-right to the textarea's container. This keeps the margin, border, and padding on the textarea, which avoids the problem that Beck pointed out about the focus highlight that chrome and safari put around the textarea.

The container's padding-right should be the sum of the effective margin, border, and padding on both sides of the textarea, plus any padding you may otherwise want for the container. So, for the case in the original question:

textarea{
    border:1px solid #999999;
    width:100%;
    margin:5px 0;
    padding:3px;
}
.textareacontainer{
    padding-right: 8px; /* 1 + 3 + 3 + 1 */
}


<div class="textareacontainer">
    <textarea></textarea>
</div>

Solution 6 - Html

This code works for me with IE8 and Firefox

<td>
    <textarea style="width:100%" rows=3 name="abc">Modify width:% accordingly</textarea>
</td>

Solution 7 - Html

You can make use of the box-sizing property, it's supported by all the main standard-compliant browsers and IE8+. You still will need a workaround for IE7 though. Read more here.

Solution 8 - Html

I was looking for an inline-styling solution instead of CSS solution, and this is the best I can go for a responsive textarea:

<div style="width: 100%; max-width: 500px;">
  <textarea style="width: 100%;"></textarea>
</div>

Solution 9 - Html

No, you cannot do that with CSS. That is the reason Microsoft initially introduced another, and maybe more practical box model. The box model that eventually won, makes it inpractical to mix percentages and units.

I don't think it is OK with you to express padding and border widths in percentage of the parent too.

Solution 10 - Html

If you pad and offset it like this:

textarea
{
    border:1px solid #999999;
    width:100%;
    padding: 7px 0 7px 7px; 
    position:relative; left:-8px; /* 1px border, too */
}

the right side of the textarea perfectly aligns with the right side of the container, and the text inside the textarea aligns perfectly with the body text in the container... and the left side of the textarea 'sticks out' a bit. it's sometimes prettier.

Solution 11 - Html

Use box sizing property:

-moz-box-sizing:border-box; 
-webkit-box-sizing:border-box; 
box-sizing:border-box;

That will help

Solution 12 - Html

For people who use Bootstrap, textarea.form-control can lead to textarea sizing issues as well. Chrome and Firefox appear to use different heights with the following Bootstrap CSS:

textarea.form-conrtol{
    height:auto;
}

Solution 13 - Html

I often fix that problem with calc(). You just give the textarea a width of 100% and a certain amount of padding, but you have to subtract the total left and right padding of the 100% width you have given to the textarea:

textarea {
    border: 0px;
    width: calc(100% -10px);
    padding: 5px; 
}

Or if you want to give the textarea a border:

textarea {
    border: 1px;
    width: calc(100% -12px); /* plus the total left and right border */
    padding: 5px; 
}

Solution 14 - Html

The problem lies in the box-sizing property. By default, the initial value of the box-sizing property is content-box. so you have something like this under the hood:

textarea {
  border:1px solid #999999;
  width:100%;
  margin:5px 0;
  padding:3px;
  box-sizing: content-box;
}

box-sizing: content-box; means that the width of the actual element is equal to the width of the element's content box. so when you add padding (in this case padding-right and padding-left --> because we are talking about width) and border (in this case border-right and border-left --> because we are talking about width), these values get added to the final width. so your element will be wider than you want.

set it to box-sizing: border-box;. so the width will be calculated like so:

horizontal border + horizontal padding + width of content box = width

in this case, when you add horizontal border and horizontal padding, the final width of element does not change, in fact, the content box will shrink to satisfy the equation.

Solution 15 - Html

How about negative margins?

textarea {
    border:1px solid #999999;
    width:100%;
    margin:5px -4px; /* 4px = border+padding on one side */
    padding:3px;
}

Solution 16 - Html

* {
    box-sizing: border-box;
}

.container {
    border-radius: 5px;
    background-color: #f2f2f2;
    padding: 20px;
}

/* Clear floats after the columns */
.row:after {
    content: "";
    display: table;
    clear: both;
}

input[type=text], select, textarea{
    width: 100%;
    padding: 12px;
    border: 1px solid #ccc;
    border-radius: 4px;
    box-sizing: border-box;
    resize: vertical;
}


<div class="container">
  <div class="row">
    <label for="name">Name</label>
    <input type="text" id="name" name="name" placeholder="Your name..">
  </div>
  <div class="row">
    <label for="country">Country</label>
    <select id="country" name="country">
      <option value="australia">UK</option>
      <option value="canada">USA</option>
      <option value="usa">RU</option>
    </select>
  </div>    
  <div class="row">
    <label for="subject">Subject</label>
    <textarea id="subject" name="subject" placeholder="Write something.." style="height:200px"></textarea>
  </div>
</div>

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