Get full height of a clipped DIV

This works in all cases, whether you have a text node inside or a container. This is using jquery, but you don't need to.

//return the total height.
totalHeight = $('#elem')[0].scrollHeight;
//return the clipped height.
visibleHeight = $('#elem').height();

$('#elem')[0] is returning the dom element from the jquery call. so you can use that on any dom elem using plain ol' javascript.


Well, you cannot do it that way, but it's possible when adding a inner element to your container, like this:

<div id="element" style="height: 20px; overflow: hidden;">
    <p id="innerElement"> <!-- notice this inner element -->
        content<br />content<br />content<br />
        content<br />content<br />content<br />
        content<br />content<br />content<br />
    </p>
</div>

sidenote: wrapping content inside paragraphs is a good practice too, plus that one extra element isn't giving that much of problems, if any at all...

And JavaScript:

var innerHeight = document.getElementById('innerElement').offsetHeight;
alert(innerHeight);

P.S. For this JavaScript to work, put it after your #element div, because plain JavaScript is executed before DOM is ready if it's not instructed to do so. To make this work when DOM is ready, check this.

But I'd suggest getting jQuery, it will come in handy later on if you're going to extend JavaScript operations in your site.

Plus, jQuery is the power, for real!

That way, simply add this script to your <head /> (assuming you've jQuery included):

$(document).ready(function() {
 var innerHeight = $('#innerElement').height();
 alert(innerHeight);
});

Example @jsFiddle using jQuery way!