Stretch and scale CSS background

Question

Is there a way to get a background in CSS to stretch or scale to fill its container?

Answer 1

Use the CSS 3 property background-size:

#my_container {
    background-size: 100% auto; /* width and height, can be %, px or whatever. */
}

This is available for modern browsers, since 2012.

Answer 2

For modern browsers, you can accomplish this by using background-size:

body {
    background-image: url(bg.jpg);
    background-size: cover;
}

cover means stretching the image either vertically or horizontally so it never tiles/repeats.

That would work for Safari 3 (or later), Chrome, Opera 10+, Firefox 3.6+, and Internet Explorer 9 (or later).

For it to work with lower verions of Internet Explorer, try these CSS:

filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='.myBackground.jpg', sizingMethod='scale');
-ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='myBackground.jpg', sizingMethod='scale')";

Answer 3

Scaling an image with CSS is not quite possible, but a similar effect can be achieved in the following manner, though.

Use this markup:

<div id="background">
    <img src="img.jpg" class="stretch" alt="" />
</div>

with the following CSS:

#background {
    width: 100%; 
    height: 100%; 
    position: absolute; 
    left: 0px; 
    top: 0px; 
    z-index: 0;
}

.stretch {
    width:100%;
    height:100%;
}

and you should be done!

In order to scale the image to be "full bleed" and maintain the aspect ratio, you can do this instead:

.stretch { min-width:100%; min-height:100%; width:auto; height:auto; }

It works out quite nicely! If one dimension is cropped, however, it will be cropped on only one side of the image, rather than being evenly cropped on both sides (and centered). I've tested it in Firefox, Webkit, and Internet Explorer 8.

Answer 4

Use the background-size attribute in CSS3:

.class {
     background-image: url(bg.gif);
     background-size: 100%;
}

EDIT: Modernizr supports detection of background-size support. You can use a JavaScript workaround written to work however you need it and load it dynamically when there is no support. This will keep the code maintainable without resorting to intrusive CSS hacks for certain browsers.

Personally I use a script to deal with it using jQuery, its an adaption of imgsizer. As most designs I do now use width %'s for fluid layouts across devices there is a slight adaptation to one of the loops (accounting for sizes that aren't always 100%):

for (var i = 0; i < images.length; i++) {
    var image = images[i],
        width = String(image.currentStyle.width);

    if (width.indexOf('%') == -1) {
        continue;
    }

    image.origWidth = image.offsetWidth;
    image.origHeight = image.offsetHeight;

    imgCache.push(image);
    c.ieAlpha(image);
    image.style.width = width;
}

EDIT: You may also be interested in jQuery CSS3 Finaliz[s]e.

Answer 5

Try the article background-size. If you use all of the following, it will work in most browsers except Internet Explorer.

.foo {
    background-image: url(bg-image.png);
    -moz-background-size: 100% 100%;
    -o-background-size: 100% 100%;
    -webkit-background-size: 100% 100%; 
    background-size: 100% 100%;
} 

Answer 6

.style1 {
        background: url(images/bg.jpg) no-repeat center center fixed;
        -webkit-background-size: cover;
        -moz-background-size: cover;
        -o-background-size: cover;
        background-size: cover;
}

Works in:

• Safari 3+
• Chrome Whatever+
• IE 9+
• Opera 10+ (Opera 9.5 supported background-size but not the keywords)
• Firefox 3.6+ (Firefox 4 supports non-vendor prefixed version)

In addition you can try this for an ie solution

    filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='.myBackground.jpg', sizingMethod='scale');
    -ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='myBackground.jpg', sizingMethod='scale')";
    zoom:1;

Credit to this article by Chris Coyier http://css-tricks.com/perfect-full-page-background-image/

Answer 7

Not currently. It will be available in CSS 3, but it will take some time until it's implemented in most browsers.

Answer 8

In one word: no. The only way to stretch an image is with the <img> tag. You'll have to be creative.

This used to be true in 2008, when the answer was written. Today modern browsers support background-size which solves this problem. Beware that IE8 doesn't support it.

Answer 9

Define "stretch and scale"...

If you've got a bitmap format, it's generally not great (graphically speaking) to stretch it and pull it about. You can use repeatable patterns to give the illusion of the same effect. For instance if you have a gradient that gets lighter towards the bottom of the page, then you would use a graphic that's a single pixel wide and the same height as your container (or preferably larger to account for scaling) and then tile it across the page. Likewise, if the gradient ran across the page, it would be one pixel high and wider than your container and repeated down the page.

Normally to give the illusion of it stretching to fill the container when the container grows or shrinks, you make the image larger than the container. Any overlap would not be displayed outside the bounds of the container.

If you want an effect that relies on something like a box with curved edges, then you would stick the left side of your box to the left side of your container with enough overlap that (within reason) no matter how large the container, it never runs out of background and then you layer an image of the right side of the box with curved edges and position it on the right of the container. Thus as the container shrinks or grows, the curved box effect appears to shrink or grow with it - it doesn't in fact, but it gives the illusion that is what's happening.

As for really making the image shrink and grow with the container, you would need to use some layering tricks to make the image appear to function as a background and some javascript to resize it with the container. There's no current way of doing this with CSS...

If you're using vector graphics, you're way outside my realm of expertise I'm afraid.

Answer 10

This is what I've made of it. In the stretch class, I simply changed the height to auto. This way your background picture has always got the same size as the width of the screen and the height will allways have the right size.

#background {
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
    position: absolute;
    margin-left: 0px;
    margin-top: 0px;
    z-index: 0;
}

.stretch {
    width:100%;
    height:auto;
}

Answer 11

Another great solution for this is Srobbin's Backstretch which can be applied to the body or any element on the page - http://srobbin.com/jquery-plugins/backstretch/

Answer 12

Try this

http://jsfiddle.net/5LZ55/4/

body
{ 
    background: url(http://p1.pichost.me/i/40/1639647.jpg) no-repeat fixed; 
    background-size: cover;
    -webkit-background-size: cover;
    -moz-background-size: cover;
    -o-background-size: cover;
}

Answer 13

Add a background-attachment line:

#background {
    background-attachment:fixed;
    width: 100%; 
    height: 100%; 
    position: absolute; 
    margin-left: 0px; 
    margin-top: 0px; 
    z-index: 0;
}

.stretch {
    width:100%;
    height:auto;
}

Answer 14

I would like to point out that this is equivalent to doing:

html { width: 100%; height: 100%; }
body { width: 100%; height: 100%; /* Add background image or gradient to stretch here. */}

Answer 15

An additional tip for SolidSmile's cheat is to scale (the proportionate re-sizing) by setting a width and using auto for height.

Ex:

#background {
    width: 500px;
    height: auto;
    position: absolute; 
    left: 0px; 
    top: 0px; 
    z-index: 0;
}

Answer 16

Use the border-image : yourimage property to set your image and scale it upto the entire border of your screen or window .