Question

How do I position a footer and make it stay there when scrolling

Asked by: mraible

I have a footer <div> that is absolutely positioned to be { bottom: 0px; left: 0px }, which works great, except when the content <div> on my page is longer than the the user's browser window.  This causes the footer to overlay the content <div>, which is fine, but when the user scrolls down, the footer stays where it is.  Is it possible with CSS to make the footer *stick* to the bottom of the browser window.  I found I can use a floating div, but this requires JavaScript, and I'd rather just use CSS.

Here is an example - click on the "set height" link and scroll down - you'll notice that the footer stays in the same spot, rather than sticking to the bottom of the browser window.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
     "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<html>
<head>
     <title>Static Footer</title>
    <style type="text/css">
        body {
            margin: 0;
            padding: 0;
        }
        div#content {
            width: 100%;
            background: #eee;
            height: 300px;
            border-top: 1px solid black;
            border-bottom: 1px solid blue;
            padding-top: 30px;
            text-align: center;
        }
        div#footer {
            position: absolute;
            bottom: 0px;
            left: 0px;
            background: #ffd;
            height: 20px;
            width: 100%;
            border-top: 1px solid red;
        }
    </style>
</head>

<body>

<div id="content">
<a href="?" onclick="document.getElementById('content').style.height='1000px'; return false">Set height to 1000px</a>
</div>

<div id="footer"></div>

</body>
</html>

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Asked On
2003-04-07 at 09:48:26ID20577118
Tags

footer

,

div

,

css

,

position

Topic

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

Participating Experts
3
Points
125
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: mraiblePosted on 2003-04-07 at 13:24:37ID: 8286731

I found this is possible with the position: fixed property, but it doesn't work in IE.

http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/menus.html

 

by: COBOLdinosaurPosted on 2003-04-07 at 14:12:49ID: 8287052

Like this (IE5+ only):

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"<http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd>">

<html>
<head>
<title>Static Footer</title>
<style type="text/css">
body {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
div#content {
width: 100%;
background: #eee;
height: 300px;
border-top: 1px solid black;
border-bottom: 1px solid blue;
padding-top: 30px;
text-align: center;
}
div#footer {
position: absolute;
background: #ffd;
height: 20px;
width: 100%;
top: expression(document.body.scrollTop + document.body.clientHeight - offsetHeight);
left: expression(document.body.scrollLeft + document.body.clientWidth - offsetWidth);
border-top: 1px solid red;
}
</style>
</head>

<body>

<div id="content">
<a href="?" onclick="document.getElementById('content').style.height='1000px'; return false">Set height to 1000px</a>
</div>

<div id="footer"></div>

</body>
</html>


Cd&

 

by: mraiblePosted on 2003-04-07 at 17:23:27ID: 8288091

I had to change document.body to document.documentElement to get this to work in standards-compliant mode on IE6, but yes this does work.

Reference: http://www.evolt.org/article/document_body_doctype_switching_and_more/17/30655/index.html

Do you know of a simple way to implement this so it works in IE5.5/6.0 on Windows in XHTML mode?  I don't have 5.5 to test with.  Here's my current version:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
     "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">


<html>
<head>
     <title>Static Footer</title>
    <style type="text/css">
        body {
            margin: 0;
            padding: 0;
        }
        div#content {
            width: 100%;
            background: #eee;
            height: 400px;
            border-top: 1px solid black;
            border-bottom: 1px solid blue;
            padding-top: 30px;
            text-align: center;
        }
        div#footer {
            position: absolute;
            top: expression(document.documentElement.scrollTop + document.documentElement.clientHeight - offsetHeight);
            left: expression(document.documentElement.scrollLeft + document.documentElement.clientWidth - offsetWidth);
            background: #ffd;
            height: 20px;
            width: 100%;
            border-top: 1px solid red;
        }
        body>div#footer {position: fixed; bottom: 0px; left: 0px}
    </style>
</head>

</head>
<body>

<div id="content">
<a href="?" onclick="document.getElementById('content').style.height='1000px'; return false">Set height to 1000px</a>
</div>

<div id="footer"></div>

</body>
</html>

 

by: redasysPosted on 2003-04-07 at 23:42:46ID: 8289605

Try using % unstead of pixels.

 

by: avnerPosted on 2003-04-08 at 02:40:00ID: 8290346

mraible , for a cross browser solution use frames, in the bottom frame pu the footer, this makes your life much easier.

You can also have two IFRAMES for that.

 

by: COBOLdinosaurPosted on 2003-04-08 at 07:13:25ID: 8291836

You can get it to work for version prior to 6 this way:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"<http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd>">


<html>
<head>
<title>Static Footer</title>
<style type="text/css">
body {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
div#content {
width: 100%;
background: #eee;
height: 400px;
border-top: 1px solid black;
border-bottom: 1px solid blue;
padding-top: 30px;
text-align: center;
}
div#footer {
position: absolute;
top: expression(document.documentElement.scrollTop + document.documentElement.clientHeight - offsetHeight);
left: expression(document.documentElement.scrollLeft + document.documentElement.clientWidth - offsetWidth);
background: #ffd;
height: 20px;
width: 100%;
border-top: 1px solid red;
}
</style>
<!--[if lt IE 6]>
<style type="text/css">
div#footer {
position: absolute;
top: expression(document.body.scrollTop + document.body.clientHeight - offsetHeight);
left: expression(document.body.scrollLeft + document.body.clientWidth - offsetWidth);
background: #ffd;
height: 20px;
width: 100%;
border-top: 1px solid red;
}
</style>
<![endif]-->
</head>

</head>
<body>

<div id="content">
<a href="?" onclick="document.getElementById('content').style.height='1000px'; return false">Set height to 1000px</a>
</div>

<div id="footer"></div>

</body>
</html>

 

by: COBOLdinosaurPosted on 2003-04-08 at 09:21:09ID: 8292924

Glad we could help. Thanks for the A. :^)

Cd&

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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