css overflow hidden increases height of container

Question

Please have a look at this fiddle - http://jsfiddle.net/Z27hC/

var container = document.createElement('span');
container.style.display = 'inline-block';
container.style.marginTop = '10px';
container.style.marginLeft = '50px';
container.style.background = 'lightblue';
document.body.appendChild(container);

var cell = document.createElement('span');
cell.style.display = 'inline-block';
cell.style.border = ' 2px solid black';
cell.style.width = '200px';
cell.style.height = '16px';
cell.style.overflow = 'hidden';
container.appendChild(cell);

var text_node = document.createTextNode('hallo');
cell.appendChild(text_node);

I have a container, containing a cell, containing a text node. The cell has a fixed width.

If the text passed to the text node exceeds the width, I want it to be truncated, so I set the cell to 'overflow: hidden'.

It works, but it causes the height of the cell to increase by 3px. The cell has a border, but the increased height appears below the border, not inside it.

As I have many cells in a spreadsheet style, it messes up the layout.

I have tested this on IE8 and Chrome, with the same result.

Any of the following solutions would be ok -

• prevent the increased height from occurring
• keep the increased height inside the border
• another way to truncate the text

As requested, here is a new fiddle that shows a more complete example.

http://jsfiddle.net/frankmillman/fA3wy/

I hope it is self-explanatory. Let me know if you need anything explained in more detail.

Here is (hopefully) my final fiddle -

http://jsfiddle.net/frankmillman/RZQQ8/

It incorporates ideas from all responders, and it now works as I want.

There are two main changes.

The first one was inspired by Mathias' table solution. Instead of an intermediate container, containing a blank row and a data row, one of which was hidden and one shown, I now just have alternating blank and data rows in the top-level container. I don't think it affected my layout problem, but it cut out a layer and simplified the code.

The second change, suggested by all the responders, actually fixed the problem. Instead of having elements of type 'span' with display 'inline-block', I now use 'div', and a careful mix of 'float left' and 'float right' to achieve the layout I want.

Many thanks to all.

Solution 1

Let me explain to you why this is happening.

According to CSS 2.1 Specs,

The baseline of an 'inline-block' is the baseline of its last line box in the normal flow, unless it has either no in-flow line boxes or if its 'overflow' property has a computed value other than 'visible', in which case the baseline is the bottom margin edge.

To explain in simple words,

i) If inline-block in question has its overflow property set to visible (which is by default so no need to set though). Then its baseline would be the baseline of the containing block of the line. ii) If inline-block in question has its overflow property set to OTHER THAN visible. Then its bottom margin would be on the baseline of the line of containing box.

So, in your case the inline-block cell has overflow:hidden (not VISIBLE), so its margin-bottom, the border of cell is at the baseline of the container element container.

That is why the element cell looks pushed upwards and the height of container appears increased. You can avoid that by setting cell to display:block.

Solution 2

The overflow-property can change the baseline of an element. To prevent this you can use vertical-align on inline-blocks.

cell.style.display = 'inline-block';
cell.style.overflow = 'hidden';
cell.style.verticalAlign = 'bottom';

http://jsfiddle.net/23e0rny9/

Solution 3

Try setting line-height: 0 for the container and line-height: 20pxfor your cells

container.style.lineHeight = '0px';

cell.style.lineHeight = '20px';

Fiddle

Or you can use float: left on your cells

cell.style.float = 'left';

Fiddle2

Solution 4

use the dsiplay 'block' of cell

cell.style.display = 'block';

and

cell.style.float= 'left';

to align left if you want to align

View more solutions

Comments

[Frank Millman]

Thanks for the explanation. As suggested by @Niles I tried 'display:block' and it worked for my simple example. Unfortunately it does not work in the more complete example I have just posted. Sometimes a cell contains more than one element. If I change'inline-block' to 'block' they are laid out vertically instead of horizontally.

[Triynko]

But if you use display:block, it will take up the entire line. You can't just switch from 'inline-block' to 'block' like this. If it has a fixed-width, yes, but otherwise, this simply will not work. This problem is NOT solved.

[Peter Brand]

vertical-align: top; seems to work better as suggested by stackoverflow.com/questions/20310690/…

[Rouven B.]

This might help: stackoverflow.com/questions/20310690/…

[Trade-Ideas Philip]

vertical-align: sub; worked for me. top and bottom did not. I'm not sure why. Once this answer got me close, I just started trying things.

[Trade-Ideas Philip]

Here's the full example: trade-ideas.com/home/phil/Triangles/HeapSort.html You can search the source for "vertical-align" or look for the right moving arrows if you're running the program.