Is there anyway to have a textarea “autofit” height based on the content at page load?

Question

Is there anyway through CSS or Javascript set the height of the textarea based on the content? I have a hardcoded height in my CSS but i wanted it to default so there is no

Answer 1

A nice solution

JSFiddle

HTML

<div id="container">
    <textarea >
    1
    12
    123
    1234
    12345
    123456
    1234567
    </textarea>
</div>

CSS

div#container textarea {
    overflow-y: hidden; /* prevents scroll bar flash */
    padding-top: 1.1em; /* prevents text jump on Enter keypress */
}

JQuery

// auto adjust the height of
$('#container').on( 'keyup', 'textarea', function (e){
    $(this).css('height', 'auto' );
    $(this).height( this.scrollHeight );
});
$('#container').find( 'textarea' ).keyup();

Answer 2

This work for me

$(function(){
    $('body').on('keydown','textarea', function(event) {
        if ($('textarea')[0].clientHeight < $('textarea')[0].scrollHeight)
        {
            $('textarea').css({'height': $('textarea')[0].scrollHeight+"px"});
        }
        else
        {
            // reset height to default value
            $('textarea').css({'height': ''});
        }
    });
});

Answer 3

If you dont mind a scollbar inside the text area you can use

$(document).ready(function(){
    tx = $('#textarea')
    tx.height(tx.prop('scrollHeight'));

})

and here is a Fiddle

another Fiddle this has min and max-width set.

but with plug-ins like auto-size

the height of the text box increases with input.

or you can try this plug-in

Answer 4

Tested in chrome

Pure javascript solution (No plugin, No jquery)

in action: fiddle

I created 3 functions:

• get line height
• get number of lines
• set the height of textarea as you type (input event)

    //attach input event
    document.getElementById('ta').addEventListener('input', autoHeight, false);

    function autoHeight(e){
        var lh = getLineHeightInPixels(e.target);
        var nol = getNumberOfLines(e.target);
        var ht = lh * nol;
        e.target.style.height = ht + 'px';
    }

    function getNumberOfLines(el){
        var text = el.value
        var lines = text.split(/\r|\r\n|\n/);
        return lines.length;
    }

    function getLineHeightInPixels(el){

        var tempDiv = document.createElement('div');

        tempDiv.style.visibility = 'hidden';

        tempDiv.style.fontFamily = getComputedStyle(el).getPropertyValue('font-family');
        tempDiv.style.fontSize = getComputedStyle(el).getPropertyValue('font-size');
        tempDiv.style.lineHeight = getComputedStyle(el).getPropertyValue('line-height');
        tempDiv.style.fontVariant = getComputedStyle(el).getPropertyValue('font-variant');
        tempDiv.style.fontStyle = getComputedStyle(el).getPropertyValue('font-style');

        tempDiv.innerText = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuwxyz';

        document.documentElement.appendChild(tempDiv);

        var ht = parseInt(getComputedStyle(tempDiv).getPropertyValue('height'))

        document.documentElement.removeChild(tempDiv);
        return (ht);
    }

    //set height on document load
    document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function(){document.getElementById('ta').style.height = getLineHeightInPixels(document.getElementById('ta')) + 'px';}, false);

<textarea id="ta"></textarea>

Answer 5

Without plugins you could do something like

$(document).ready(function(){
  elem=document.getElementById('#elemid');
  while(elem.clientHeight < elem.scrollHeight) {elem.height(elem.height()+10)}
});

Resizing the textarea while it does have a scrollbar (so elem.clientHeight < elem.scrollHeight). You can do it quite easily even without JQuery, in plain javascript.

Didn't test the code, it's just the "concept".

EDIT: Dumb me, it's much easier, no loops...

if (elem.clientHeight < elem.scrollHeight) elem.style.height=elem.scrollHeight+"px";

Answer 6

This other question about WhatsApp like input has been incorrectly marked as a duplicate of this current question. As I cannot answer there, I'm answering it here.

I was trying to create a WhatsApp like input area, with the following features:

1. The div/textarea should expand upwards when the content exceeds 4em
2. Max height of the div/textarea should be 6em
3. The messaging area (above the div/textarea) should reduce i.e. its scrollbar thumbtack size should change.

Here is my pure CSS solution, if anyone is looking for it (like I was a few minutes ago).

.arena {
  position: absolute;
  height: 20em;
  width: 12em;
  background-color: #efefef;
  padding: 1em;
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  justify-content: space-between;
}
.messages {
  padding: 0.2em;
  height: 5em;
  flex: 1 1 0;
  overflow: auto;
}
.content {
  background-color: teal;  
  height: 20em;
}
.footer {
  position: relative;
  background-color: #cdcdcd;
  padding: 0.2em;
}
.editable {
  outline: none;
  max-height: 6em;
  min-height: 4em;
  overflow: auto;
  width: 80%;
  background-color: #fff;
}

<div class="arena">
  <div class="messages">
    <div class="content"></div>
  </div>
  <div class="footer">
    <div class="editable" contenteditable="true"></div>
  </div>
</div>