How to make a DIV not wrap?

Question

I need to create a container DIV style that contains multiple other DIV's. It is asked that these DIV's wouldn't wrap if the browser window is resized to be narrow.

I tried to make it work like below.

<style>
   .container
   {
      min-width: 3000px;
      overflow: hidden;
   }
   .slide
   {
      float: left;
   }
</style>
<div class="container">
   <div class="slide">something</div>
   <div class="slide">something</div>
   <div class="slide">something</div>
   <div class="slide">something</div>
</div>

This works in most cases. However, in some special cases, the rendering is incorrect. I found the container DIV change to 3000px width in RTL of IE7; and it turns to be messy.

Is there any other way to make a container DIV not to wrap?

Reeher

i added this tag : white-space: nowrap; and this tag: text-overflow: ellipsis; to my code – Tedder

Answer 1

Try using white-space: nowrap; in the container style (instead of overflow: hidden;)

Kilovolt

Answer 2

If I don't want to define a minimal width because I don't know the amount of elements the only thing that worked to me was:

display: inline-block;
white-space: nowrap;

But only in Chrome and Safari :/

Gautea

Answer 3

The following worked for me without floating (I modified your example a little for visual effect):

.container
{
    white-space: nowrap; /*Prevents Wrapping*/
    
    width: 300px;
    height: 120px;
    overflow-x: scroll;
    overflow-y: hidden;
}
.slide
{
    display: inline-block; /*Display inline and maintain block characteristics.*/
    vertical-align: top; /*Makes sure all the divs are correctly aligned.*/
    white-space: normal; /*Prevents child elements from inheriting nowrap.*/
    
    width: 100px;
    height: 100px;
    background-color: red;
    margin: 5px;
}

<div class="container">
   <div class="slide">something something something</div>
   <div class="slide">something something something</div>
   <div class="slide">something something something</div>
   <div class="slide">something something something</div>
</div>

The divs may be separated by spaces. If you don't want this, use margin-right: -4px; instead of margin: 5px; for .slide (it's ugly but it's a tricky problem to deal with).

Ehlke

Great answer. I've added a similar example below but I deleted it after I've seen yours. If you don't have to support IE9, you can also use flexbox: jsfiddle.net/7gsrb38L/1 – Tagore

You can use HTML comments between the divs </div><!-- --><div class="slide"> if you want to remove the extra spaces between them. The inline-block style causes the white space in your code to be picked up as space in the HTML document. – Rocaille

@Rocaille to reduce the page size you could rather use something what is not rendered e.g. when using php: </div><?php ?><div class="slide"> renders as </div><div class="slide"> in the source code. – Reactance

Also, if you generate the HTML with JavaScript you can avoid spaces. I use DOThtml. The above HTML can be replaced with this: dot("body").div(dot.iterate(4, function(i){return dot.div("something something something something").class("slide");})).class("container") – Ehlke

Answer 4

The combo you need is

white-space: nowrap

on the parent and

display: inline-block; // or inline

on the children

Optimize

Answer 5

This worked for me:

.container {
  display: inline-flex;
}

.slide {
  float: left;
}

<div class="container">
  <div class="slide">something1</div>
  <div class="slide">something2</div>
  <div class="slide">something3</div>
  <div class="slide">something4</div>
</div>

https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/

Metallurgy

This with overflow:hidden worked a treat for me. Thanks. – Eastern

Answer 6

overflow: hidden should give you the correct behavior. My guess is that RTL is messed up because you have float: left on the encapsulated divs.

Beside that bug, you got the right behavior.

Sulfathiazole

I'll check whether it is due to "float:left" on encapsulated divs. But, same code works fine on Firefox and Safari, just not on IE. So, I really doubt this is the case. – Reeher

Answer 7

Use display:flex and white-space:nowrap

p{
  display:flex;
  white-space:nowrap;
  overflow:auto;
}

<h2>Sample Text.</h2>

<p>Some example text that will not wrap..lla et dictum interdum, nisi lorem egestas odio, vitae scelerisque enim ligula venenatis dolor. Maecenas nisl est, ultrices nec congue eget, auctor vitae massa. Fusce luctus vestibulum augue ut aliquet. Mauris ante ligula, facilisis sed ornare eu, lobortis in odio. Praesent convallis urna a lacus interdum ut hendrerit risus congue. Nunc sagittis dictum nisi, sed ullamcorper ipsum d</p>

<h3>Then some other text</h3>

Shala

I don't think that white-space has to do with display: flex. I had success just using white-space: nowrap – Honeysucker

@BrianUnderwood, when combined width of children exceeds 100%, it helps. See this post where this particular behaviour of flex is unwanted: #30685259 – Decurved

Answer 8

Try to use width: 3000px; for the case of IE.

Menial

Answer 9

None of the above worked for me.

In my case, I needed to add the following to the user control I had created:

display:inline-block;

Middling

Answer 10

The min-width property does not work correctly in Internet Explorer, which is most likely the cause of your problems.

Read info and a brilliant script that fixes many IE CSS problems.

Undersea

Answer 11

you can use

display: table;

for your container and therfore avoid the overflow: hidden;. It should do the job if you used it just for warpping purpose.

Jorgensen

Answer 12

<div style="height:200px;width:200px;border:; white-space: nowrap;overflow-x: scroll;overflow-y: hidden;">
   <p>The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
   The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
   The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
   The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
   The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.</p>
</div>

Misuse

Answer 13

The <span> tag is used to group inline-elements in a document.
(source)

Hymnology

While this is true, it doesn't appear to address the question at all. – Screwball

This perfectly addresses the question because span and div are identical in everithing except that div is wrapped and span is not. And you can implement whatever workarounds you wish. – Hymnology

Does that mean that your suggestion is "Use spans instead of divs"? Because that isn't what you said. – Screwball