Creating a textarea with auto-resize

Question

There was another thread about this, which I've tried. But there is one problem: the textarea doesn't shrink if you delete the content. I can't find any way to shrink it to the correct size - the clientHeight value comes back as the full size of the textarea, not its contents.

The code from that page is below:

function FitToContent(id, maxHeight)
{
   var text = id && id.style ? id : document.getElementById(id);
   if ( !text )
      return;

   var adjustedHeight = text.clientHeight;
   if ( !maxHeight || maxHeight > adjustedHeight )
   {
      adjustedHeight = Math.max(text.scrollHeight, adjustedHeight);
      if ( maxHeight )
         adjustedHeight = Math.min(maxHeight, adjustedHeight);
      if ( adjustedHeight > text.clientHeight )
         text.style.height = adjustedHeight + "px";
   }
}

window.onload = function() {
    document.getElementById("ta").onkeyup = function() {
      FitToContent( this, 500 )
    };
}

Answer 1

Native Javascript solution without flickering in Firefox and faster than method withclientHeight...

1) Add div.textarea selector to all your selectors containing textarea. Do not forget to add box-sizing: border-box;

2) Include this script:

function resizeAll()
{
   var textarea=document.querySelectorAll('textarea');
   for(var i=textarea.length-1; i>=0; i--)
      resize(textarea[i]);
}

function resize(textarea)
{
   var div = document.createElement("div");
   div.setAttribute("class","textarea");
   div.innerText=textarea.value+"\r\n";
   div.setAttribute("style","width:"+textarea.offsetWidth+'px;display:block;height:auto;left:0px;top:0px;position:fixed;z-index:-200;visibility:hidden;word-wrap:break-word;overflow:hidden;');
   textarea.form.appendChild(div);
   var h=div.offsetHeight;
   div.parentNode.removeChild(div);
   textarea.style.height=h+'px';
}

function resizeOnInput(e)
{
   var textarea=document.querySelectorAll('textarea');
   for(var i=textarea.length-1; i>=0; i--)
      textarea[i].addEventListener("input",function(e){resize(e.target); return false;},false);
}

window.addEventListener("resize",function(){resizeAll();}, false);
window.addEventListener("load",function(){resizeAll();}, false);
resizeOnInput();

Tested on IE11, Firefox and Chrome.

This solution creates div similar to your textarea including internal text and measures height.

Answer 2

jQuery solution adjust the css to match your requirements

css...

div#container textarea {
    min-width: 270px;
    width: 270px;
    height: 22px;
    line-height: 24px;
    min-height: 22px;
    overflow-y: hidden; /* fixes scrollbar flash - kudos to @brettjonesdev */
    padding-top: 1.1em; /* fixes text jump on Enter keypress */
}

javascript...

// auto adjust the height of
$('#container').delegate( 'textarea', 'keydown', function (){
    $(this).height( 0 );
    $(this).height( this.scrollHeight );
});
$('#container').find( 'textarea' ).keydown();

OR alternative for jQuery 1.7+...

// auto adjust the height of
$('#container').on( 'keyup', 'textarea', function (){
    $(this).height( 0 );
    $(this).height( this.scrollHeight );
});
$('#container').find( 'textarea' ).keyup();

I've created a fiddle with the absolute minimum styling as a starting point for your experiments... http://jsfiddle.net/53eAy/951/

Answer 3

I used the following code for multiple textareas. Working fine in Chrome 12, Firefox 5 and IE 9, even with delete, cut and paste actions performed in the textareas.

<!-- language: lang-html -->
<style type='text/css'>
textarea { border:0 none; overflow:hidden; outline:none; background-color:#eee }
</style>
<textarea style='height:100px;font-family:arial' id="txt1"></textarea>
<textarea style='height:125px;font-family:arial' id="txt2"></textarea>
<textarea style='height:150px;font-family:arial' id="txt3"></textarea>
<textarea style='height:175px;font-family:arial' id="txt4"></textarea>
<script type='text/javascript'>
function attachAutoResizeEvents()
{   for(i=1;i<=4;i++)
    {   var txtX=document.getElementById('txt'+i)
        var minH=txtX.style.height.substr(0,txtX.style.height.indexOf('px'))
        txtX.onchange=new Function("resize(this,"+minH+")")
        txtX.onkeyup=new Function("resize(this,"+minH+")")
        txtX.onchange(txtX,minH)
    }
}
function resize(txtX,minH)
{   txtX.style.height = 'auto' // required when delete, cut or paste is performed
    txtX.style.height = txtX.scrollHeight+'px'
    if(txtX.scrollHeight<=minH)
        txtX.style.height = minH+'px'
}
window.onload=attachAutoResizeEvents
</script>

Answer 4

You can use this piece of code to compute the number of rows a textarea needs:

textarea.rows = 1;
    if (textarea.scrollHeight > textarea.clientHeight)
      textarea.rows = textarea.scrollHeight / textarea.clientHeight;

Compute it on input and window:resize events to get auto-resize effect. Example in Angular:

Template code:

<textarea rows="1" reAutoWrap></textarea>

auto-wrap.directive.ts

import { Directive, ElementRef, HostListener } from '@angular/core';

@Directive({
  selector: 'textarea[reAutoWrap]',
})
export class AutoWrapDirective {

  private readonly textarea: HTMLTextAreaElement;

  constructor(el: ElementRef) {
    this.textarea = el.nativeElement;
  }

  @HostListener('input') onInput() {
    this.resize();
  }

  @HostListener('window:resize') onChange() {
    this.resize();
  }

  private resize() {
    this.textarea.rows = 1;
    if (this.textarea.scrollHeight > this.textarea.clientHeight)
      this.textarea.rows = this.textarea.scrollHeight / this.textarea.clientHeight;
  }

}

Answer 5

Some of the answers here don't account for padding.

Assuming you have a maxHeight you don't want to go over, this worked for me:

    // obviously requires jQuery

    // element is the textarea DOM node

    var $el = $(element);
    // inner height is height + padding
    // outerHeight includes border (and possibly margins too?)
    var padding = $el.innerHeight() - $el.height();
    var originalHeight = $el.height();

    // XXX: Don't leave this hardcoded
    var maxHeight = 300;

    var adjust = function() {
        // reset it to the original height so that scrollHeight makes sense
        $el.height(originalHeight);

        // this is the desired height (adjusted to content size)
        var height = element.scrollHeight - padding;

        // If you don't want a maxHeight, you can ignore this
        height = Math.min(height, maxHeight);

        // Set the height to the new adjusted height
        $el.height(height);
    }

    // The input event only works on modern browsers
    element.addEventListener('input', adjust);

Answer 6

If you don’t need to support IE8 you can use the input event:

var resizingTextareas = [].slice.call(document.querySelectorAll('textarea[autoresize]'));

resizingTextareas.forEach(function(textarea) {
  textarea.addEventListener('input', autoresize, false);
});

function autoresize() {
  this.style.height = 'auto';
  this.style.height = this.scrollHeight+'px';
  this.scrollTop = this.scrollHeight;
  window.scrollTo(window.scrollLeft,(this.scrollTop+this.scrollHeight));
}

Now you only need to add some CSS and you are done:

textarea[autoresize] {
  display: block;
  overflow: hidden;
  resize: none;
}

Usage:

<textarea autoresize>Type here and I’ll resize.</textarea>

You can read more about how it works on my blog post.