jQuery API

.width()

Categories: CSS | Dimensions | Manipulation > Style Properties
Contents:

.width() Returns: Integer

Description: Get the current computed width for the first element in the set of matched elements.

  • version added: 1.0.width()

The difference between .css(width) and .width() is that the latter returns a unit-less pixel value (for example, 400) while the former returns a value with units intact (for example, 400px). The .width() method is recommended when an element's width needs to be used in a mathematical calculation.

This method is also able to find the width of the window and document.

$(window).width();   // returns width of browser viewport
$(document).width(); // returns width of HTML document

Example:

Show various widths. Note the values are from the iframe so might be smaller than you expected. The yellow highlight shows the iframe body.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <style>
  body { background:yellow; }
  button { font-size:12px; margin:2px; }
  p { width:150px; border:1px red solid; }
  div { color:red; font-weight:bold;  }
  </style>
  <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.min.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
	<button id="getp">Get Paragraph Width</button>
  <button id="getd">Get Document Width</button>
  <button id="getw">Get Window Width</button>

  <div>&nbsp;</div>
  <p>
    Sample paragraph to test width
  </p>
<script>
    function showWidth(ele, w) {
      $("div").text("The width for the " + ele + 
                    " is " + w + "px.");
    }
    $("#getp").click(function () { 
      showWidth("paragraph", $("p").width()); 
    });
    $("#getd").click(function () { 
      showWidth("document", $(document).width()); 
    });
    $("#getw").click(function () { 
      showWidth("window", $(window).width()); 
    });

</script>

</body>
</html>

Demo:

.width( value ) Returns: jQuery

Description: Set the CSS width of each element in the set of matched elements.

  • version added: 1.0.width( value )

    valueAn integer representing the number of pixels, or an integer along with an optional unit of measure appended (as a string).

  • version added: 1.4.1.width( function(index, width) )

    function(index, width)A function returning the width to set. Receives the index position of the element in the set and the old width as arguments.

When calling .width('value'), the value can be either a string (number and unit) or a number. If only a number is provided for the value, jQuery assumes a pixel unit. If a string is provided, however, any valid CSS measurement may be used for the width (such as 100px, 50%, or auto). Note that in modern browsers, the CSS width property does not include padding, border, or margin.

If no explicit unit was specified (like 'em' or '%') then "px" is concatenated to the value.

Example:

To set the width of each div on click to 30px plus a color change.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <style>
  div { width:70px; height:50px; float:left; margin:5px;
        background:red; cursor:pointer; }
  </style>
  <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.min.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
	<div></div>
  <div>d</div>

  <div>d</div>
  <div>d</div>
  <div>d</div>
<script>

    $("div").one('click', function () {
      $(this).width(30)
             .css({cursor:"auto", "background-color":"blue"});
    });
</script>

</body>
</html>

Demo:

Comments

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  • Please do post corrections or additional examples for .width() below. We aim to quickly move corrections into the documentation.
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  • Discussions about the API specifically should be addressed in the Developing jQuery Core forum.
  • I was having trouble with getting the correct value from a DIV in IE. It turns out it's because I'm using filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Shadow to get a drop shadow. When you read the width, the added pixels from the drop shadow are included, so $('#box').width($('#box').width()) makes the box larger by 2x the shadow strength.

    I'm using box-shadow on EOMB and DirectX filters in IE, so my fix is to check $.support.opacity, and if it's false, get the shadow size with

    $('#box').css('filter').match(/shadow\S+strength=(\d+)/i)[1]

    then double that and subtract it from the reported width.

    Thought I'd share in case anybody else is pulling their hair out over this.
  • tails
    for hidden elements, this method returns 0, though checking direction with .css('width') may work.
  • james342
    in IE
    I had a problem where .width() was returning 1 for an image that I knew was 700. The problem turned out to be that it was a problem with the width attribute.
    I am using php to serve images and {WIDTH} was supposed to be replaced with the width of the image, but the php was not working.

    So the html in the browser looked like this

    <img id="imgHold" src="image.jpg" width="{WIDTH}">

    and the script

    alert($("imgHold").width());

    in all browser but IE, 700 was returned but IE returned 1 because of the erroneous width attribute.

    Took me a while to figure out,... Should have validated code.

    Thought It might help others
  • i was just wondering if there was a way animate this procedure like perhaps

    $("#iframewin").width(700,"slow");
    });
    });

  • $('#iframewin').animate({width: 700}, 'slow');
Time to generate: 2.4808