Unnecessary Horizontal Scrollbar in IE Popups or Frames XHTML Bug
Internet Explorer 6.0 for Windows, and Internet Explorer 5.0 for Mac has a bug that provides a horizontal scrollbar to pages residing in frames or popup windows, even when no horizontal scrollbar is needed. The cause is a flawed interpretation of the XHTML 1.0 transitional doctype.
Here are some solutions to the problem.
To fix the problem, you may select the solution that fits you best.
Solution 1:
Paste the following code in your stylesheet:
html { overflow-y: scroll; }
This forces the vertical scroller to be enabled by default, thus, for some reason, eliminating IE’s need for a horisontal one.
Pros:
- Fixes the problem completely, allowing you to keep your XHTML doctype intact
Cons:
- Forces the vertical scroller, even when it’s not needed. Be careful not to attach the stylesheet to, for instance, a frameset index.
Solution 2:
Paste the following code in your stylesheet:
html { overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: auto; }
This hides the horisontal scrollbar, and sets the vertical scrollbar to only be enabled when necessary.
Pros:
- Visually fixes the problem
- Doesn’t force a vertical scroller when it is not needed
Cons:
- Simply hides the horisontal scroller, doesn’t actually fix the problem. Thus, you may have content that will actually be located outside the page, where normally a horisontal scroller would be needed. It will be forcefully hidden.
Solution 3:
Paste the following code in your stylesheet:
body { margin-right: -15px; margin-bottom: -15px; }
This adds a negative vertical and horisontal margin, the exact amount that IE adds, thus eliminating the artificial need for a scrollbar.
Pros:
- Visually fixes the problem
- Doesn’t force a vertical scrollbar
Cons:
- Doesn’t allow you to utilize the fill horisontal screen real estate, due to the “artificially created” 15px margin
I personally use, and would recommend, solution 1.
Forcing scrollbars
The techniques used to “fix” the bug in question, can also be used for other purposes. With CSS, you can forcefully show or hide both vertical and horisontal scrollbars in both Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer.
Forcefully enabling scrollbars:
html { overflow: scroll; }
Forcefully disabling scrollbars:
html { overflow: hidden; }
Hiding the horizontal scrollbar in IE:
html { overflow-x: hidden; }
Hiding the vertical scrollbar in IE:
html { overflow-y: hidden; }
Forcing the horizontal scrollbar in IE:
html { overflow-x: scroll; }
Forcing the vertical scrollbar in IE:
html { overflow-y: scroll;< }
Forcing the horizontal scrollbar in Mozilla:
html { overflow:-moz-scrollbars-horizontal; }
Note: This forces the horisontal scrollbar ONLY. This means even if a vertical scrollbar is necessary, it won’t appear.
Forcing the vertical scrollbar in Mozilla:
html { overflow:-moz-scrollbars-vertical; }
Note: This forces the vertical scrollbar ONLY. This means even if a horisontal scrollbar is necessary, it won’t appear.
References
Thanks to Nikolaas De Geyndt’s excellent document, for providing some of the solutions.
- Protected SWF's are bye-bye?
- Unnecessary Horizontal Scrollbar in IE Popups or Frames XHTML Bug
- No | February 04 - Kinesthetics
- My Name Is On Mars
Thanks, its gr8
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Allah razı olsun be kardeşim. :D
thanks
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The only reliable AND also CSS and HTML-comformat manner to fix this issue is removing the DTD URL from the tag.
Read more about that in here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/horizontal_scroll.html
That way, Microsoft IE doesn't ruin your pages and W3C continues validating them.
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I am having a problem forcing the scrollbars in IE.
I tried everything you suggested in both the style sheet and the regular page. I'm new to css and am kicking myself for not just doing this in HTML.
Now I've built the whole site and have no scrollbars!
Your fixes fixed it in Firefox but IE still wont' budge. (See the "upcoming events" link for the fixed one). Even in Firefox the scrollbar is cut off some...
Help!
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Actually, I got the solution. Except mine is for horizontal scrolling. Could be turned around though.
http://blog.josh420.com/archives/2007/11/fixing-the-ie-overflow-vertical-scrollbar-bug.aspx
Best regards...
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I love you and I want your babies!
No seriously, that's exactly what I needed and searched for for ages.
Be blessed with sparkling, precious things!!!
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I very much appreciate you posting this! Simple problems should always have simple solutions, unfortunately, they don't :).
Much thanks,
Alex
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Even though this post is so old, it's still extremely valid. Thanks for posting this many years ago, as you just helped me fix an annoying 'feature' of IE6 (I used your overflow-x: hidden; to turn the damn thing off, as that is perfect when working in css divs where you can totally control the width of content boxes).
Cheers!
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This one is bizarre beyond all others I've encountered. Thanks for your help, even if its a hack, I'm getting the feeling hacks are the only way around this one.
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I have a problem with scroll bar in mozilla.The horizontal scroll bar gets enabled but the information is truncated which makes the columns overlap and gives a bad look.
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This is really very very helpful, thanks a ton for posting it.
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Ran into similar problems with Blogger Templates.
Most of the time I can resolve it by just setting the margin and padding in the html element in css. The overflow only as a last resort after I've exhausted all other options. Thanks for providing all the options
The bottom of my latest entry has information on removing horizontal scroll bars from Blogger Templates.
Thanks for providing all the different variations for controlling scrollbars in css.
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By the way.. You do realize this page has a needless horizontal scrollbar because of your search box right? :)
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Heheh, yes, I do realize that. And because this is my personal website, and because the search box is where I want it, I get to do it.
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thank you for this. fixes my problem
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