Internet Explorer 6 and 7: floated elements expand to 100% width when they contain a child element floated right. Is there a workaround?

css internet-explorer css-float

22,145

Solution 1

Here's a solution which makes inline-block work on IE6 as at http://foohack.com/2007/11/cross-browser-support-for-inline-block-styling/ to make the elements behave more like right-floated <div>s:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<head>

<title>Float with inline-block test</title>

<style type="text/css">
    .container {
        border-top: solid 10px green;
        float: left;
    }

    .tester1,
    .tester2 {
        float: right;
    }

    .tester1 {
        border-top: solid 10px blue;
    }

    .tester2 {
        border-top: solid 10px purple;
    }
</style>

<!--[if lte IE 7]>
<style type="text/css">
    .container {
        text-align: right;
    }

    .tester1,
    .tester2 {
        float: none;
        zoom: 1; display: inline;/* display: inline-block; for block-level elements in IE 7 and 6. See http://foohack.com/2007/11/cross-browser-support-for-inline-block-styling/ */
    }
</style>
<![endif]-->

</head>

<body>
<div class="container">
    <div class="tester1">Tester 1</div>
    <div class="tester2">Tester 2</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Solution 2

I came up with a solution using text-align: right and display: inline.

Try this:

<div style="border-top:solid 10px #0c0; float: left;">
    <div style="margin-top: 10px; text-align: right;">
        <div style="border-top:solid 10px #c0c; display: inline;">Tester 2</div>
        <div style="border-top:solid 10px #00c; display: inline;">Tester 1</div>
    </div>
</div>

Notice I had to switch the order of the "tester" boxes in the markup to show up in the same way as your example. I think there is an alternative that margin-top on the new container, but I don't have time looking into right now.

If you want cleaner styling for all other browsers try this:

<div style="border-top:solid 10px #0c0; float: left;">
    <div style="float: right;">
        <div style="border-top:solid 10px #c0c; float: left;">Tester 2</div>
        <div style="border-top:solid 10px #00c; float: left;">Tester 1</div>
    </div>
</div>

There are some different issues that can come up when you want to layout stuff around those boxes. However, I think those issues will be much easier to solve than this one.

Hope this was helpful for you.

Solution 3

I couldn't come up with a CSS-only solution that fits your requirements, but if you want to use a JavaScript solution, maybe the following code can help? I did not alter the style of the divs, I only added the IDs main, sub1, and sub2 to your divs.

var myWidth = document.getElementById('sub1').offsetWidth + document.getElementById('sub2').offsetWidth;
document.getElementById('main').style.width = myWidth;

Solution 4

I had the same problem and solved in by positioning the child element (which I wanted to float right) with position:absolute and right:0. I gave the parent element enough right padding to make room for the child element... Worth a shot, might not work for all applications!

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22,145

Author by

Joe Dargie

Freelance web developer in London.

Updated on May 10, 2020

Comments

Joe Dargie about 4 years
I've got a parent div floated left, with two child divs that I need to float right.

The parent div should (if I understand the spec correctly) be as wide as needed to contain the child divs, and this is how it behaves in Firefox et al.

In IE, the parent div expands to 100% width. This seems to be an issue with floated elements that have children floated right. Test page:
```
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">

<head>
<title>Float test</title>
</head>

<body>
<div style="border-top:solid 10px #0c0;float:left;">
    <div style="border-top:solid 10px #00c;float:right;">Tester 1</div>
    <div style="border-top:solid 10px #c0c;float:right;">Tester 2</div>
</div>
</body>

</html>
```
Unfortunately I can't fix the width of the child divs, so I can't set a fixed width on the parent.

Is there a CSS-only workaround to make the parent div as wide as the child divs?