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min-height property

Sets or retrieves the minimum height for an element.

Syntax

min-height: <length> | <percentage>

Property values

A VARIANT that specifies or receives the minimum height for an element.

length: Floating-point number followed by an absolute units designator (cm, mm, in, pt, or pc) or a relative units designator (em, ex, or px). For more information about the supported length units, see CSS Values and Units Reference.
percentage: Integer followed by a percent sign (%) that specifies a percentage of the containing block height to use as the minimum height of the element. If the height of the containing block is not explicitly set, then the element has no minimum height and the min-height property is interpreted as 0%. For Internet Explorer 6, information on containing blocks and how the height is computed, see the Cascading Style Sheets, Level 2 (CSS2) specification. For Internet Explorer 7, see the Cascading Style Sheets, Level 2.1 (CSS2.1) specification.

CSS information

Applies To	All elements
Media	visual
Inherited	no
Initial Value

Standards information

CSS 2.1, Section 10.7

Remarks

In Internet Explorer 6, this property applies only to td, th, and tr elements in fixed-layout tables. To create a fixed-layout table, set the table-layout property of a table element to fixed. The advantage of a fixed-layout table is that it renders faster than an auto-layout table. Auto-layout tables are the default.

In Internet Explorer 7, the min-height/max-height attributes apply to floating and absolutely positioned block, inline-block elements, and some intrinsic controls. They do not apply to non-replaced inline elements, such as table columns and row/column groups. (A "replaced" element has intrinsic dimensions, such as an img or textArea.)

In Internet Explorer 7, this property is enabled only under the strict !DOCTYPE.

Examples

The following Internet Explorer 6 example shows the benefits of using the min-height attribute over the HEIGHT attribute for a tr element.

Code example: http://samples.msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/samples/author/dhtml/refs/minheight.htm


<html>
<head>
<title>min-height Attribute Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<table border="1" style="table-layout: fixed; width: 100%;">
    <tr>
        <td style="height: 35px; background-color: #99CCFF">This cell has the <b>
        height</b> attribute set to 35px. In Internet Explorer, overflow text is 
        clipped when <b>height</b> is set on cells or rows in fixed-layout tables. 
        Setting the <b>min-height</b> attribute, however, accommodates overflow text 
        by increasing the cell or row height.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td style="min-height: 35px; background-color: #99CCFF">This cell has the
        <b>min-height</b> attribute set to 35px. In Internet Explorer, overflow 
        text is clipped when <b>height</b> is set on cells or rows in fixed-layout 
        tables. Setting the <b>min-height</b> attribute, however, accommodates overflow 
        text by increasing the cell or row height.</td>
    </tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>

The following Internet Explorer 7 example shows how the min-height and max-height attributes affect the layout of a div element. Internet Explorer 7 is required to view the example.

Code example: http://samples.msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/samples/author/dhtml/refs/minHeight7.htm


<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN">
<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
.height {
    float: left;
    width: 300px;
    background: #fff;
    margin: 0 1em;
}
#example1 {
    min-height: 200px;
}
#example2 {
    max-height: 100px;
}
.content {
    border: 1px solid #c00;
    padding: 5px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div class="height" id="example1">
    <div class="content">
        <h2>{ min-height:200px }</h2>
        <p>The height of this div is always at least 200px.<br />
        <br />
        The content does not fill the entire div.</p>
    </div>
</div>
<div class="height" id="example2">
    <div class="content">
        <h2>{ max-height:100px }</h2>
        <p>This div will not grow more than 100px in height.<br />
        <br />
        The content that does not fit in the div continues beyond it.</p>
    </div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

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