How to make a div fill a remaining horizontal spac

Question

I have 2 divs: one in the left side and one in the right side of my page. The one in the left side has fixed width and I want the one of the right side to fill the remaining space.

    #search {
        width: 160px;
        height: 25px;
        float: left;
        background-color: #ffffff;
    }
    #navigation {
        width: 780px;
        float: left;  
        background-color: #A53030;
    }

<div id="search">Text</div>
<div id="navigation">Navigation</div>

Answer 1

I have been working on this problem for two days and have a solution that may work for you and anyone else trying to make a responsive Fixed width left and have the right side fill in the remainder of the screen without wrapping around the left side. The intention I assume is to make the page responsive in browsers as well as mobile devices.

Here is the Code

// Fix the width of the right side to cover the screen when resized
$thePageRefreshed = true;
// The delay time below is needed to insure that the resize happens after the window resize event fires
// In addition the show() helps.  Without this delay the right div may go off screen when browser is refreshed 
setTimeout(function(){
    fixRightSideWidth();
    $('.right_content_container').show(600);
}, 50);

// Capture the window resize event (only fires when you resize the browser).
$( window ).resize(function() {
    fixRightSideWidth();
});

function fixRightSideWidth(){
    $blockWrap = 300; // Point at which you allow the right div to drop below the top div
    $normalRightResize = $( window ).width() - $('.left_navigator_items').width() - 20; // The -20 forces the right block to fall below the left
    if( ($normalRightResize >= $blockWrap) || $thePageRefreshed == true ){
        $('.right_content_container').width( $normalRightResize );
        $('.right_content_container').css("padding-left","0px");
        
        /* Begin test lines these can be deleted */
        $rightrightPosition = $('.right_content_container').css("right");
        $rightleftPosition = $('.right_content_container').css("left");
        $rightwidthPosition = $('.right_content_container').css("width");
        $(".top_title").html('window width: '+$( window ).width()+" "+'width: '+$rightwidthPosition+" "+'right: '+$rightrightPosition);
        /* End test lines these can be deleted */
    
    
    }
    else{
        if( $('.right_content_container').width() > 300 ){
            $('.right_content_container').width(300);
        }
        
        /* Begin test lines these can be deleted */
        $rightrightPosition = $('.right_content_container').css("right");
        $rightleftPosition = $('.right_content_container').css("left");
        $rightwidthPosition = $('.right_content_container').css("width");
        $(".top_title").html('window width: '+$( window ).width()+" "+'width: '+$rightwidthPosition+" "+'right: '+$rightrightPosition);
        /* End test lines these can be deleted */
    
    }
    if( $thePageRefreshed == true ){
        $thePageRefreshed = false;
    }
}

/* NOTE: The html and body settings are needed for full functionality
and they are ignored by jsfiddle so create this exapmle on your web site
*/
html {
    min-width: 310px;
    background: #333;
    min-height:100vh;
}

body{
	background: #333;
	background-color: #333;
	color: white;
    min-height:100vh;
}

.top_title{
  background-color: blue;
  text-align: center;
}

.bottom_content{
	border: 0px;
	height: 100%;
}

.left_right_container * {
    position: relative;
    margin: 0px;
    padding: 0px;
    background: #333 !important;
    background-color: #333 !important;
    display:inline-block;
    text-shadow: none;
    text-transform: none;
    letter-spacing: normal;
    font-size: 14px;
    font-weight: 400;
    font-family: -apple-system,BlinkMacSystemFont,"Segoe UI",Roboto,Oxygen-Sans,Ubuntu,Cantarell,"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;
    border-radius: 0;
    box-sizing: content-box;
    transition: none;
}

.left_navigator_item{
	display:inline-block;
	margin-right: 5px;
	margin-bottom: 0px !important;
	width: 100%;
	min-height: 20px !important;
	text-align:center !important;
	margin: 0px;
	padding-top: 3px;
	padding-bottom: 3px;
	vertical-align: top;
}

.left_navigator_items {
    float: left;
    width: 150px;
}

.right_content_container{
    float: right;
    overflow: visible!important;
    width:95%; /* width don't matter jqoery overwrites on refresh */
    display:none;
    right:0px;
}

.span_text{
	background: #eee !important;
	background-color: #eee !important;
	color: black !important;
	padding: 5px;
	margin: 0px;
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div class="top_title">Test Title</div>
<div class="bottom_content">
    <div class="left_right_container">
        <div class="left_navigator_items">
            <div class="left_navigator_item">Dashboard</div>
            <div class="left_navigator_item">Calendar</div>
            <div class="left_navigator_item">Calendar Validator</div>
            <div class="left_navigator_item">Bulletin Board Slide Editor</div>
            <div class="left_navigator_item">Bulletin Board Slide Show (Live)</div>
            <div class="left_navigator_item">TV Guide</div>
        </div>
        <div class="right_content_container">
            <div class="span_text">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam ullamcorper maximus tellus a commodo. Fusce posuere at nisi in venenatis. Sed posuere dui sapien, sit amet facilisis purus maximus sit amet. Proin luctus lectus nec rutrum accumsan. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Ut fermentum lectus consectetur sapien tempus molestie. Donec bibendum pulvinar purus, ac aliquet est commodo sit amet. Duis vel euismod mauris, eu congue ex. In vel arcu vel sem lobortis posuere. Cras in nisi nec urna blandit porta at et nunc. Morbi laoreet consectetur odio ultricies ullamcorper. Suspendisse potenti. Nulla facilisi.

Quisque cursus lobortis molestie. Aliquam ut scelerisque leo. Integer sed sodales lectus, eget varius odio. Nullam nec dapibus lorem. Aenean a mattis velit, ut porta nunc. Phasellus aliquam volutpat molestie. Aliquam tristique purus neque, vitae interdum ante aliquam ut.

Pellentesque quis finibus velit. Fusce ac pulvinar est, in placerat sem. Suspendisse nec nunc id nunc vestibulum hendrerit. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Mauris id lectus dapibus, tempor nunc non, bibendum nisl. Proin euismod, erat nec aliquet mollis, erat metus convallis nulla, eu tincidunt eros erat a lectus. Vivamus sed mattis neque. In vitae pellentesque mauris. Ut aliquet auctor vulputate. Duis eleifend tincidunt gravida. Sed tincidunt blandit tempor.

Duis pharetra, elit id aliquam placerat, nunc arcu interdum neque, ac luctus odio felis vitae magna. Curabitur commodo finibus suscipit. Maecenas ut risus eget nisl vehicula feugiat. Sed sed bibendum justo. Curabitur in laoreet dolor. Suspendisse eget ligula ac neque ullamcorper blandit. Phasellus sit amet ultricies tellus.

In fringilla, augue sed fringilla accumsan, orci eros laoreet urna, vel aliquam ex nulla in eros. Quisque aliquet nisl et scelerisque vehicula. Curabitur facilisis, nisi non maximus facilisis, augue erat gravida nunc, in tempus massa diam id dolor. Suspendisse dapibus leo vel pretium ultrices. Sed finibus dolor est, sit amet pharetra quam dapibus fermentum. Ut nec risus pharetra, convallis nisl nec, tempor nisl. Vivamus sit amet quam quis dolor dapibus maximus. Suspendisse accumsan sagittis ligula, ut ultricies nisi feugiat pretium. Cras aliquam velit eu venenatis accumsan. Integer imperdiet, eros sit amet dignissim volutpat, tortor enim varius turpis, vel viverra ante mauris at felis. Mauris sed accumsan sapien. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Ut vel magna commodo, facilisis turpis eu, semper mi. Nulla massa risus, bibendum a magna molestie, gravida maximus nunc.</div>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

Here is my fiddle that may just work for you as it did for me. https://jsfiddle.net/Larry_Robertson/62LLjapm/

Answer 2

Since this is a rather popular question, I'm inclined to share a nice solution using BFC.
Codepen sample of the following here.

.left {
  float: left;
  width: 100px;
}
.right {
  overflow: auto;
}

In this case, overflow: auto triggers context behavior and makes the right element expand only to the available remaining width and it will naturally expand to full width if .left disappears. A highly useful and clean trick for many UI layouts, but perhaps hard to understand the "why it works" at first.

Answer 3

@Boushley's answer was the closest, however there is one problem not addressed that has been pointed out. The right div takes the entire width of the browser; the content takes the expected width. To see this problem better:

<html>
<head>
    <style type="text/css">
    * { margin: 0; padding: 0; }
    body {
        height: 100%;
    }
    #left {
        opacity: 0;
        height: inherit;
        float: left;
        width: 180px;
        background: green;
    }
    #right {
        height: inherit;
        background: orange;
    }
    table {
            width: 100%;
            background: red;
    }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
    <div id="left">
        <p>Left</p>
    </div>
    <div id="right">
        <table><tr><td>Hello, World!</td></tr></table>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

http://jsfiddle.net/79hpS/

The content is in the correct place (in Firefox), however, the width incorrect. When child elements start inheriting width (e.g. the table with width: 100%) they are given a width equal to that of the browser causing them to overflow off the right of the page and create a horizontal scrollbar (in Firefox) or not float and be pushed down (in chrome).

You can fix this easily by adding overflow: hidden to the right column. This gives you the correct width for both the content and the div. Furthermore, the table will receive the correct width and fill the remaining width available.

I tried some of the other solutions above, they didn't work fully with certain edge cases and were just too convoluted to warrant fixing them. This works and it's simple.

If there are any problems or concerns, feel free to raise them.

Answer 4

I wonder that no one used position: absolute with position: relative

So, another solution would be:

HTML

<header>
  <div id="left"><input type="text"></div>
  <div id="right">Menu1 Menu2 Menu3</div>
</header>

CSS

header { position: relative;  }
#left {
    width: 160px;
    height: 25px;
}
#right {
    position: absolute;
    top: 0px;
    left: 160px;
    right: 0px;
    height: 25px;
}

Jsfiddle example

Answer 5

I ran into this same problem trying to layout some jqueryUI controls. Although the common philosophy now is "use DIV instead of TABLE", I found in my case using TABLE worked much better. In particular, if you need to have straightforward alignment within the two elements (e.g., vertical centering, horizontal centering, etc.) the options available with TABLE give simple, intuitive controls for this.

Here's my solution:

<html>
<head>
  <title>Sample solution for fixed left, variable right layout</title>
  <style type="text/css">
    #controls {
      width: 100%;
    }
    #RightSide {
      background-color:green;
    }
  </style>
</head>

<body>
<div id="controls">
  <table border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="0">
    <TR>
      <TD>
        <button>
FixedWidth
        </button>
      </TD>
      <TD width="99%" ALIGN="CENTER">
        <div id="RightSide">Right</div>
      </TD>
    </TR>
  </table>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Answer 6

The solution comes from the display property.

Basically you need to make the two divs act like table cells. So instead of using float:left, you'll have to use display:table-cell on both divs, and for the dynamic width div you need to set width:auto; also. The both divs should be placed into a 100% width container with the display:table property.

Here is the css:

.container {display:table;width:100%}
#search {
  width: 160px;
  height: 25px;
  display:table-cell;
  background-color: #FFF;
}
#navigation {
  width: auto;
  display:table-cell;
  /*background-color: url('../images/transparent.png') ;*/
  background-color: #A53030;
}

*html #navigation {float:left;}

And the HTML:

<div class="container">
   <div id="search"></div>
   <div id="navigation"></div>
</div>

IMPORTANT:For Internet Explorer you need to specify the float property on the dynamic width div, otherwise the space will not be filled.

I hope that this will solve your problem. If you want, you can read the full article I wrote about this on my blog.