Tutorial
clientWidth and clientHeight in JavaScript
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Using clientWidth
and clientHeight
you’re able to get the pixel dimensions of an HTML element. The dimensions are calculated using the dimensions of content inside the HTML element, along with the padding.
Note: Borders, margins, or scrollbars (if present) are excluded when computing clientWidth
and clientHeight
Using clientWidth and clientHeight
<div id="foo">
Hello World
</div>
const clientWidth = document.querySelector('#foo').clientWidth;
const clientHeight = document.querySelector('#foo').clientHeight;
Learning Exercises
As an exercise, try calculating the value of clientWidth
and clientHeight
of the following HTML element:
/**********************************************
** If the HTML element is <div id="foo"/> **
**********************************************/
const clientWidth = document.querySelector('div#foo').clientWidth;
const clientHeight = document.querySelector('div#foo').clientHeight;
console.log(clientWidth, clientHeight);
// --> 200, 100
How was it calculated? Add the padding, with the content inside the HTML element, and ignore the margins and borders:
(10 + 50) + 140 // clientWidth === 200
(30) + 70 // clientHeight === 100
Let’s try another! Try calculating the clientWidth
and clientHeight
of this HTML element:
(10 + 10) + 230 // clientWidth === 250
(30 + 20) + 70 // clientHeight === 120
Notes
- Block-level:
clientWidth
andclientHeight
does NOT work with inline HTML elements (likespan
,em
, ora
). It’ll just return0
! - Rounded Values: Values are rounded to the nearest integer. If you need more precise values use getBoundingClientRect()
- Read-Only: You can’t assign a new value to change the dimensions of the HTML element. For example this doesn’t do anything:
someElement.clientWidth = 30
clientWidth
and clientHeight
are supported on all major desktop and mobile browsers.
See the official W3C specs for detailed information about clientWidth
and clientHeight
.