Force sidebar height 100% using CSS (with a sticky bottom image)?

Question

I've been banging my head against the wall for hours trying to figure out this issue and think it must be something small I'm missing. I've searched online, but nothing I have found seems to work. The HTML is:

<body>
  <div id="header">
    <div id="bannerleft">
    </div>

    <div id="bannerright">
      <div id="WebLinks">
        <span>Web Links:</span>
        <ul>
          <li><a href="#"><img src="../../Content/images/MySpace_32x32.png" alt="MySpace"/></a></li>
          <li><a href="#"><img src="../../Content/images/FaceBook_32x32.png" alt="Facebook"/></a></li>
          <li><a href="#"><img src="../../Content/images/Youtube_32x32.png" alt="YouTube"/></a></li>
        </ul>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>
  <div id="Sidebar">
    <div id="SidebarBottom">
    </div>
  </div>
  <div id="NavigationContainer">
    <ul id="Navigation">
      <li><a href="#">Nav</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">Nav</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">Nav</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">Nav</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">Nav</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">Nav</a></li>
    </ul>
  </div>
  <div id="Main">
    <!-- content -->
  </div>
</body>

My full CSS is:

* {
  margin: 0px;
  padding: 0px;
}

body {
  font-family: Calibri, Sans-Serif;
  height: 100%;
}

#header {
  width: 100%;
  z-index: 1;
  height: 340px;
  background-image: url("../../Content/images/bannercenter.gif");
  background-repeat: repeat-x;
}

#header #bannerleft {
  float: left;
  background-image: url("../../Content/images/bannerleft.gif");
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  height: 340px;
  width: 439px;
  z-index: 2;
}

#bannerright {
  float: right;
  background-image: url("../../Content/images/bannerright.gif");
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  width: 382px;
  height: 340px;
  background-color: White;
  z-index: 2;
}

#Sidebar {
  width: 180px;
  background: url("../../Content/images/Sidebar.png") repeat-y;
  z-index: 2;
  height: 100%;
  position: absolute;
}

#SidebarBottom {
  margin-left: 33px;
  height: 100%;
  background: url("../../Content/images/SidebarImage.png") no-repeat bottom;
}

#NavigationContainer {
  position: absolute;
  top: 350px;
  width: 100%;
  background-color: #bbc4c3;
  height: 29px;
  z-index: 1;
  left: 0px;
}

#Navigation {
  margin-left: 190px;
  font-family: Calibri, Sans-Serif;
}

#Navigation li {
  float: left;
  list-style: none;
  padding-right: 3%;
  padding-top: 6px;
  font-size: 100%;
}

#Navigation a:link, a:active, a:visited {
  color: #012235;
  text-decoration: none;
  font-weight: 500;
}

#Navigation a:hover {
  color: White;
}

#WebLinks {
  float: right;
  color: #00324b;
  margin-top: 50px;
  width: 375px;
}

#WebLinks span {
  float: left;
  margin-right: 7px;
  margin-left: 21px;
  font-size: 10pt;
  margin-top: 8px;
  font-family: Helvetica;
}

#WebLinks ul li {
  float: left;
  padding-right: 7px;
  list-style: none;
}

#WebLinks ul li a {
  text-decoration: none;
  font-size: 8pt;
  color: #00324b;
  font-weight: normal;
}

#WebLinks ul li a img {
  border-style: none;
}

#WebLinks ul li a:hover {
  color: #bcc5c4;
}

I'd like the sidebar to stretch in height with the content of my page and leave the sidebar bottom image always at the bottom of the sidebar.

Seconded, mark-up would be a help. And would allow us to offer specific css or suggestions. — David Thomas, Apr 26 '09 at 17:32

montrealmike · Answer 1 · 2014-01-29T19:16:04.193

102

This worked for me

.container { 
  overflow: hidden; 
  .... 
} 

#sidebar { 
  margin-bottom: -5000px; /* any large number will do */
  padding-bottom: 5000px; 
  .... 
}

edited Jan 29 '14 at 19:16

answered Dec 09 '11 at 20:44

montrealmike

11,433
10
64
86

7

this is great, any downsides? – kinet Mar 29 '12 at 18:35
Perfect for me as well! Thanks! – Deekor Jan 02 '13 at 21:02
12

I found a downside to this. If you try linking to a specific location inside .container using ``, .container will scroll to that location, leaving anything above it hidden. See this: http://jsfiddle.net/PTvcS/ – you can change the overflow to auto to get a better view. – Norbert Feb 06 '13 at 23:13
2

i feel like I found Holy Grail. this trick is awesome, I had so much problems with sidebars back then.. – nakajuice Apr 23 '13 at 23:57
1

In case anyone else is blind like me: Don't forget the `overflow: hidden` part or bad things will happen. – Doodad Oct 26 '14 at 11:55
2

This makes the page 5000px high, correct? Is no one else bothered by that scroll bar showing only a small fraction of the page as viewed? – Dave Morse Sep 13 '16 at 21:13

Adam Grant · Answer 2 · 2012-12-31T14:56:06.963

33

Until CSS's flexbox becomes more mainstream, you can always just absolutely position the sidebar, sticking it zero pixels away from the top and bottom, then set a margin on your main container to compensate.

JSFiddle

http://jsfiddle.net/QDCGv/

HTML

<section class="sidebar">I'm a sidebar.</section>

<section class="main">I'm the main section.</section>

CSS

section.sidebar {
  width: 250px;
  position: absolute;
  top: 0;
  bottom: 0;
  background-color: green;
}

section.main { margin-left: 250px; }

Note: This is an über simple way to do this but you'll find bottom does not mean "bottom of page," but "bottom of window." The sidebar will probably abrubtly end if your main content scrolls down.

edited Dec 31 '12 at 14:56

answered Dec 28 '12 at 17:02

Adam Grant

12,477
10
58
65

Glad that worked for you, see my note about its shortcomings. – Adam Grant Dec 31 '12 at 14:56
3

But if you have a lot of content, then when you scroll down, the sidebar will not fill the full height any longer. – TheYaXxE Jan 21 '14 at 08:25
Right, and I noted this at the bottom of my answer. – Adam Grant Jan 21 '14 at 13:10
1

Also, to alleviate this, you can have your content in its own absolute-positioned container, also appended to top and bottom of the window, so the page never really scrolls, only the main content div. In any case, this is still a hack. If your users support flexbox, definitely use that instead! – Adam Grant Aug 07 '15 at 18:07
What about the flexbox solution you mention? – wranvaud Mar 26 '19 at 10:40
1

@wranvaud There's this one: https://stackoverflow.com/a/32639892/393243 – Adam Grant Mar 29 '19 at 22:26

Arve Systad · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-22T08:44:11.390

28

UPDATE: As this answer is still getting votes both up and down, and is at the time of writing eight years old: There are probably better techniques out there now. Original answer follows below.

Clearly you are looking for the Faux columns technique :-)

By how the height-property is calculated, you can't set height: 100% inside something that has auto-height.

edited Feb 22 '17 at 08:44

answered Apr 26 '09 at 17:32

Arve Systad

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58

Using the faux columns technique was the closest I was able to get. The problems I ran into were that I couldn't make the sidebar overlap on top of the navigation bar and I couldn't figure out how to put the "sidebar bottom" image always at the bottom of the sidebar. – Jon Apr 26 '09 at 17:55
1

If you have one main-container, in which you have the background for the entire page, you can use the sidebar-bottom-image like this: `background: url(blabla) no-repeat bottom;`. Making the sidebar overlap on top of the navigation bar could also be solved by "emulating" the sidebar in the nav-bar-background. If this makes no sense to you, would you stick up a sketch of what you are trying to achieve? :) – Arve Systad Apr 26 '09 at 22:15
put teh sidebar bottom image in the site footer but use position relative or absolute, or neagative top margin, tp lift it up so it appears on top of the sidebar. – wheresrhys Apr 27 '09 at 00:45
4

Answers can be expensive, affordable or cheap and this answer is cheap. – John Feb 28 '15 at 02:56
5

They can also be old and appropriate for their time. – Arve Systad Oct 20 '15 at 06:46

score 14 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 17 '13 at 10:31

14

I would use css tables to achieve a 100% sidebar height.

The basic idea is to wrap the sidebar and main divs in a container.

Give the container a display:table

And give the 2 child divs (sidebar and main) a display: table-cell

Like so..

#container {
display: table;
}
#main {
display: table-cell;
vertical-align: top;
}
#sidebar {
display: table-cell;
vertical-align: top;
}

Take a look at this LIVE DEMO where I have modified your initial markup using the above technique (I have used background colors for the different divs so that you can see which ones are which)

answered Jan 17 '13 at 10:31

Danield

121,619
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1

Wow, this awesome - table layouts without tables! – Dom Feb 26 '13 at 23:31
1

This is great, thank you. Many of the others above seemed to work for small content then fell apart. This one doesn't, Thanks. – Michael Kennedy Jul 29 '14 at 15:19
tiny demo http://jsfiddle.net/n1crdy4f/1/ – suhailvs Oct 08 '21 at 12:18

score 9 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 17 '15 at 21:00

9

Flexbox (http://caniuse.com/#feat=flexbox)

First wrap the columns you want in a div or section, ex:

<div class="content">
    <div class="main"></div>
    <div class="sidebar"></div>
</div>

Then add the following CSS:

.content {
    display: -webkit-box;
    display: -moz-box;
    display: -ms-flexbox;
    display: -webkit-flex;
    display: flex;
}

answered Sep 17 '15 at 21:00

9ete

3,692
1
34
32

2

Looks like this is the best answer on this days. – MarkSkayff Aug 15 '18 at 18:11
2

You might also want to add `flex-flow:wrap` if your page elements stop wrapping – wranvaud Mar 26 '19 at 11:07

score 5 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 01 '14 at 18:29

Further to @montrealmike 's answer, can I just add my adaptation?

I did this:

.container { 
  overflow: hidden; 
  .... 
} 

#sidebar { 
  margin-bottom: -101%;
  padding-bottom: 101%; 
  .... 
}

I did the "101%" thing to cater for the (ultra rare) possibility that somebody may be viewing the site on a huge screen with a height more than 5000px!

Great answer though, montrealmike. It worked perfectly for me.

score 4 · Answer 7 · answered Aug 22 '10 at 21:21

I have run into this issue several times on different projects, but I have found a solution that works for me. You have to use four div tags - one that contains the sidebar, the main content, and a footer.

First, style the elements in your stylesheet:

#container {
width: 100%;
background: #FFFAF0;
}

.content {
width: 950px;
float: right;
padding: 10px;
height: 100%;
background: #FFFAF0;
}

.sidebar {
width: 220px;
float: left;
height: 100%;
padding: 5px;
background: #FFFAF0;
}

#footer {
clear:both;
background:#FFFAF0;
}

You can edit the different elements however you want to, just be sure you dont change the footer property "clear:both" - this is very important to leave in.

Then, simply set up your web page like this:

<div id=”container”>
<div class=”sidebar”></div>
<div class=”content”></div>
<div id=”footer”></div>
</div>

I wrote a more in-depth blog post about this at http://blog.thelibzter.com/how-to-make-a-sidebar-extend-the-entire-height-of-its-container. Please let me know if you have any questions. Hope this helps!

Three notes: 1. You can't use the id 'footer' now in HTML 5 or 4.01 Transitional. You have to call it 'columns-footer' or something for it to show up and clear. 2. As the blog post makes clear, this doesn't actually extend the sidebar, it just puts a background behind it that looks the same. So if your sidebar is colored, you have to put in a div of that color. 3. The pixel widths screw everything up for me, but width:20% and width:80% work, if you have box-sizing:border-box turned on. — Noumenon, Feb 19 '13 at 07:41

Frank Lämmer · Answer 8 · 2013-10-20T14:05:30.063

2

i guess, today one would probably use flexbox for this. See the holy grail example.

edited Oct 20 '13 at 14:05

answered Oct 15 '13 at 20:14

Frank Lämmer

2,165
19
26

You need to add more detail to your answer. Why would one use flexbox for this? – Miguel-F Oct 15 '13 at 20:42

score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Apr 26 '09 at 17:24

2

Perhaps Multi-Column Layouts Climb Out of the Box is what you're looking for?

answered Apr 26 '09 at 17:24

strager

88,763
26
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176

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Mar 14 '14 at 00:07

I realise this is an old post but I was trying to work something out for my site to have a sidebar. Would this work?

#sidebar-background
{
    position:fixed;
    width:250px;
    top:0;
    bottom:0;
    background-color:orange;
}

#content-background
{
    position:fixed;
    right:0;
    top:0;
    bottom:0;
    left:250px;
    background-color:pink;
}

#sidebar
{
    float:left;
    width:250px;
}

#content
{
    float:left;
    width:600px;
}

<div id="sidebar-background"></div>
<div id="content-background"></div>

<div id="sidebar">Sidebar stuff here</div>
<div id="content">Stuff in here</div>

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Oct 06 '11 at 08:25

I was facing the same problem as Jon. TheLibzter put me on the right track, but the image that has to stay at the bottom of the sidebar was not included. So I made some adjustments...

Important:

Positioning of the div which contains the sidebar and the content (#bodyLayout). This should be relative.
Positioning of the div that has to stay at the bottom of the sidbar (#sidebarBottomDiv). This should be absolute.
The width of the content + the width of the sidebar must be equal to the width of the page (#container)

Here's the css:

    #container
    {
        margin: auto;
        width: 940px;
    }
    #bodyLayout
    {
        position: relative;
        width: 100%;
        padding: 0;
    }
    #header
    {
        height: 95px;
        background-color: blue;
        color: white;
    }
    #sidebar
    {
        background-color: yellow;
    }
    #sidebarTopDiv
    {
        float: left;
        width: 245px;
        color: black;
    }
    #sidebarBottomDiv
    {
        position: absolute;
        float: left;
        bottom: 0;
        width: 245px;
        height: 100px;
        background-color: green;
        color: white;
    }
    #content
    {
        float: right;
        min-height: 250px;
        width: 695px;
        background-color: White;
    }
    #footer
    {
        width: 940px;
        height: 75px;
        background-color: red;
        color: white;
    }
    .clear
    {
        clear: both;
    }

And here's the html:

<div id="container">
    <div id="header">
        This is your header!
    </div>
    <div id="bodyLayout">
        <div id="sidebar">
            <div id="sidebarTopDiv">
                This is your sidebar!                   
            </div>
            <div id="content">                  
            This is your content!<br />
            The minimum height of the content is set to 250px so the div at the bottom of
            the sidebar will not overlap the top part of the sidebar.
            </div>
            <div id="sidebarBottomDiv">
                This is the div that will stay at the bottom of your footer!
            </div>
            <div class="clear" />
        </div>
    </div>
</div>
<div id="footer">
    This is your footer!
</div>

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Jan 31 '14 at 11:16

0

use body background if you are using fixed width sidebar give the same width image as your side bar. also put background-repeat:repeat-y in your css codes.

answered Jan 31 '14 at 11:16

Ajit Bhandari

1,119
14
21

score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Jun 25 '14 at 15:58

0

Position absolute, top:0 and bottom:0 for the sidebar and position relative for the wrapper (or container) witch content all the elements and it's done !

answered Jun 25 '14 at 15:58

Vincent V.

1
1

score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Nov 11 '19 at 03:35

Try this. It forces navbar to grow as content added, and keeps main area centered.

   <html>
        <head>
            <style>
                    section.sidebar {
          width: 250px;
          min-height:100vh;
          position: sticky;
          top: 0;
          bottom: 0;
          background-color: green;
        }

        section.main { position:sticky; top:0;bottom:0;background-color: red; margin-left: 250px;min-height:100vh; }
            </style>
            <script lang="javascript">
            var i = 0;
            function AddOne()
            {
                for(i = 0;i<20;i++)
                {
                var node = document.createElement("LI");
                var textnode = document.createTextNode(' Water ' + i.toString());

                node.appendChild(textnode);
                document.getElementById("list").appendChild(node);
                }


            }
            </script>
        </head>
        <body>
                <section class="sidebar">
                    <button id="add" onclick="AddOne()">Add</button>
                    <ul id="list">
                        <li>bullshit 1</li>
                    </ul>
                </section>
                <section class="main">I'm the main section.</section>
        </body>    
    </html>

score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Oct 08 '21 at 12:21

this is a simplified version of danield's answer

.container {
  display: table;
  height: 260px;
}
#sidebar {
  display: table-cell;
  vertical-align: top;
  background-color:red;
  position:relative;
} 

#sidebarbottom
{
  height:30px;
  position:absolute;
  bottom:0;
}

<div class="container">
  <div id="sidebar">
    SIDEBAR HERE
    <div id="sidebarbottom">
      Sidebar Bottom
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Nov 13 '22 at 07:11

0

one simple way to solve this is to use fixed position with setting the height to 100vh (equal to 100%), an example:

  aside {
  background-color: var(--main-color);
  color: white;
  position: fixed;
  width: 60px;
  height: 100vh;
  z-index: 1;
}

answered Nov 13 '22 at 07:11

Abdulrazzak Alsssouki

163
1
7

score 0 · Answer 17 · answered Apr 26 '09 at 17:29

I think your solution would be to wrap your content container and your sidebar in a parent containing div. Float your sidebar to the left and give it the background image. Create a wide margin at least the width of your sidebar for your content container. Add clearing a float hack to make it all work.

Force sidebar height 100% using CSS (with a sticky bottom image)?

17 Answers17

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