Width equal to content

I'm experiencing some trouble with the width property of CSS. I have some paragraphs inside a div. I'd like to make the width of the paragraphs equal to their content, so that their green background looks like a label for the text. What I get instead is that the paragraphs inherit the width of the div father node which is wider.

#container {
  width: 30%;
  background-color: grey;
}

#container p {
  background-color: green;
}

<div id="container">
  <p>Sample Text 1</p>
  <p>Sample Text 2</p>
  <p>Sample Text 3</p>
</div>

I set width as max-content and it worked for me.

width: max-content;

By default p tags are block elements, which means they take 100% of the parent width.

You can change their display property with:

#container p {
   display:inline-block;
}

But it puts the elements side by side.

To keep each element on its own line you can use:

#container p {
   clear:both;
   float:left;
}

_{(If you use float and need to clear after floated elements, see this link for different techniques: http://css-tricks.com/all-about-floats/)}</sub>

Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/CvJ3W/5/

Edit

If you go for the solution with display:inline-block but want to keep each item in one line, you can just add a <br> tag after each one:

<div id="container">
  <p>Sample Text 1</p><br/>
  <p>Sample Text 2</p><br/>
  <p>Sample Text 3</p><br/>
</div>

New demo: http://jsfiddle.net/CvJ3W/7/

The solution with inline-block forces you to insert <br> after each element.
The solution with float forces you to wrap all elements with "clearfix" div.

Another elegant solution is to use display: table for elements.

With this solution you don't need to insert line breaks manually (like with inline-block), you don't need a wrapper around your elements (like with floats) and you can center your element if you need.

http://jsfiddle.net/8md3jy4r/3/

Adding display: inline-block; to the p styling should take of it:

http://jsfiddle.net/pyq3C/

#container p{
    background-color: green;
    display: inline-block;
}

set width attribute as: width: fit-content

demo: <http://jsfiddle.net/rvrjp7/pyq3C/114>

Using display:inline-block; will not work for long sentences without spaces like HiHowAreYouHopeYouAreDoingGood...etc to fix this consider using word-wrap: break-word; instead

it's made to allow long words to be able to break and wrap onto the next line., also Facebook using it

Example

#container {
    width: 40%;
    background-color: grey;
    overflow:hidden;
    margin:10px;
}
#container p{
    display:inline-block;
    background-color: green;
}
.flex{
    display: flex;
}

#wrap {
    width: 30%;
    background-color: grey;
    overflow:hidden;
    margin:10px;
}
#wrap p{
   word-wrap: break-word;
    background-color: green;
}

<h1> display:inline-block;</h1>
<div class='flex'>

<div id="container">
<h5>With spaces </h5>
    <p>Sample Text 1 Sample Text 1 Sample Text 1 Sample Text 1 Sample Text 1 Sample Text 1 Sample Text 1</p>
</div>

<div id="container">
  <h5>No specaes (not working )</h5>  <p>HiHowAreYouHopeYouAreDoingGoodHiHowAreYouHopeYouAreDoingGoodHiHowAreYouHopeYouAreDoingGood</p>
</div>
</div>




<h1>  word-wrap: break-word;</h1>
<div class='flex'>

<div id="wrap">
<h5>With spaces </h5>
    <p>Sample Text 1 Sample Text 1 Sample Text 1 Sample Text 1 Sample Text 1 Sample Text 1 Sample Text 1</p>
</div>

<div id="wrap">
  <h5>No specaes (working )</h5>  <p>HiHowAreYouHopeYouAreDoingGoodHiHowAreYouHopeYouAreDoingGoodHiHowAreYouHopeYouAreDoingGoodHiHowAreYouHopeYouAreDoingGood</p>
</div>
</div>

Set display:inline-block and then adjust your margins.

fiddle here: http://jsfiddle.net/Q2MrC/

You can use either of below :-

1. display : inline-block :

http://jsbin.com/feneni/edit?html,css,js,output

Uncomment the line

 float:left;
 clear:both 

and you will find that parent container has collapsed.

2. Using display : table

http://jsbin.com/dujowep/edit?html,css,js,output

You can use flex to achieve this:

.container {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  align-items: flex-start;
}

flex-start will automatically adjust the width of children to their contents.

Try using a <span> element instead. Or if you prefer, try display:inline

If you are using display: flex for whatever reason and need on browsers like Edge/IE, you can instead use:

> display: inline-flex

With ~97% browser support for inline-flex.

Despite using display: inline-block. My div would fill the screen width when the children elements had their widths set to % of parent. If anyone else is looking for a solution to this and doesn't mind using screen proportion instead of parent proportion, replace the % with vw for width (Viewport Width), or vh for height (Viewport Height).

just use display: table; on your case.

You can use CSS property like this:

div {
    display: inherit;
}

I hope this helps.