How To Resize an IFrame to the Size of Its Contents Without Displaying Scroll Bars (278469)



The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 4.0
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 4.01
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 4.01 SP1
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 4.01 SP2
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 5
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 5.01
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 5.01 SP1
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (Programming) 5.5

This article was previously published under Q278469

SUMMARY

In certain situations, you may want to resize an IFrame so that all of its document contents are visible, but no scroll bars are displayed on the page. This article describes how to do this.

MORE INFORMATION

To determine the size of the IFrame's contents, you must access the height and width properties of the underlying IFrame document. Because you only have scripting access to pages that are hosted in the same domain, you can only access the properties to the pages that are hosted within the same domain (for example, Cross Frame Scripting). Therefore, the source document of the IFrame must be from the same domain as the page that contains the IFrame.

The following code demonstrates how to resize an IFrame in this way. Create a new .htm document, and paste the following HTML code. In the SRC attribute for the IFrame, you must supply an HTML page from the same domain that the IFrame loads.

NOTE: This technique may not work correctly if there are absolutely positioned elements that are residing within the IFrame.
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE=javascript>
<!--
function reSize()
{
	try{	
	var oBody	=	ifrm.document.body;
	var oFrame	=	document.all("ifrm");
		
	oFrame.style.height = oBody.scrollHeight + (oBody.offsetHeight - oBody.clientHeight);
	oFrame.style.width = oBody.scrollWidth + (oBody.offsetWidth - oBody.clientWidth);
	}
	//An error is raised if the IFrame domain != its container's domain
	catch(e)
	{
	window.status =	'Error: ' + e.number + '; ' + e.description;
	}
}
//-->
</SCRIPT>
</HEAD>
<BODY onload=reSize()>
	<iframe onresize=reSize() id=ifrm src=YOUR_PAGE_HERE></iframe>
</BODY>
</HTML>
				
This example uses try and catch to check for domain consistency, which are only available with Internet Explorer 5 and later. This error checking is included for illustration purposes and is not absolutely necessary; it only allows the script to fail gracefully.

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language being demonstrated and the tools used to create and debug procedures. Microsoft support professionals can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific needs. If you have limited programming experience, you may want to contact a Microsoft Certified Partner or the Microsoft fee-based consulting line at (800) 936-5200. For more information about Microsoft Certified Partners, please visit the following Microsoft Web site: For more information about the support options that are available and about how to contact Microsoft, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

REFERENCES

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

167796 PRB: Permission Denied Error Message When Scripting Across Frame

For more information about measuring element dimensions and locations, see the following Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Web site: For more information about developing Web-based solutions for Microsoft Internet Explorer, visit the following Microsoft Web sites:

Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:5/11/2006
Keywords:kbDHTML kbhowto kbSBNWorkshop KB278469