What is offsetHeight, clientHeight, scrollHeight?

Question

Thought of explaining what is the difference between offsetHeight, clientHeight and scrollHeight or offsetWidth, clientWidth and scrollWidth?

One must know this difference before working on the client side. Otherwise half of their life will be spent in fixing the UI.

Fiddle, or inline below:

function whatis(propType) {
  var mainDiv = document.getElementById("MainDIV");
  if (window.sampleDiv == null) {
    var div = document.createElement("div");
    window.sampleDiv = div;
  }
  div = window.sampleDiv;
  var propTypeWidth = propType.toLowerCase() + "Width";
  var propTypeHeight = propType + "Height";

  var computedStyle = window.getComputedStyle(mainDiv, null);
  var borderLeftWidth = computedStyle.getPropertyValue("border-left-width");
  var borderTopWidth = computedStyle.getPropertyValue("border-top-width");

  div.style.position = "absolute";
  div.style.left = mainDiv.offsetLeft + Math.round(parseFloat((propType == "client") ? borderLeftWidth : 0)) + "px";
  div.style.top = mainDiv.offsetTop + Math.round(parseFloat((propType == "client") ? borderTopWidth : 0)) + "px";
  div.style.height = mainDiv[propTypeHeight] + "px";
  div.style.lineHeight = mainDiv[propTypeHeight] + "px";
  div.style.width = mainDiv[propTypeWidth] + "px";
  div.style.textAlign = "center";
  div.innerHTML = propTypeWidth + " X " + propTypeHeight + "( " +
    mainDiv[propTypeWidth] + " x " + mainDiv[propTypeHeight] + " )";



  div.style.background = "rgba(0,0,255,0.5)";
  document.body.appendChild(div);

}
document.getElementById("offset").onclick = function() {
  whatis('offset');
}
document.getElementById("client").onclick = function() {
  whatis('client');
}
document.getElementById("scroll").onclick = function() {
  whatis('scroll');
}

#MainDIV {
  border: 5px solid red;
}

<button id="offset">offsetHeight & offsetWidth</button>
<button id="client">clientHeight & clientWidth</button>
<button id="scroll">scrollHeight & scrollWidth</button>

<div id="MainDIV" style="margin:auto; height:200px; width:400px; overflow:auto;">
  <div style="height:400px; width:500px; overflow:hidden;">

  </div>
</div>

Answer 1

Offset Means "the amount or distance by which something is out of line". Margin or Borders are something which makes the actual height or width of an HTML element "out of line". It will help you to remember that :

• offsetHeight is a measurement in pixels of the element's CSS height, including border, padding and the element's horizontal scrollbar.

On the other hand, clientHeight is something which is you can say kind of the opposite of OffsetHeight. It doesn't include the border or margins. It does include the padding because it is something that resides inside of the HTML container, so it doesn't count as extra measurements like margin or border. So :

• clientHeight property returns the viewable height of an element in pixels, including padding, but not the border, scrollbar or margin.

ScrollHeight is all the scrollable area, so your scroll will never run over your margin or border, so that's why scrollHeight doesn't include margin or borders but yeah padding does. So:

• scrollHeight value is equal to the minimum height the element would require in order to fit all the content in the viewport without using a vertical scrollbar. The height is measured in the same way as clientHeight: it includes the element's padding, but not its border, margin or horizontal scrollbar.

Answer 2

My descriptions for the three:

• offsetHeight: How much of the parent's "relative positioning" space is taken up by the element. (ie. it ignores the element's position: absolute descendents)
• clientHeight: Same as offset-height, except it excludes the element's own border, margin, and the height of its horizontal scroll-bar (if it has one).
• scrollHeight: How much space is needed to see all of the element's content/descendents (including position: absolute ones) without scrolling.

Then there is also:

• getBoundingClientRect().height: Same as scrollHeight, except that it's calculated after the element's css transforms are applied.

Answer 3

* offsetHeight is a measurement in pixels of the element's CSS height, including border, padding and the element's horizontal scrollbar.

* clientHeight property returns the viewable height of an element in pixels, including padding, but not the border, scrollbar or margin.

* scrollHeight value is equal to the minimum height the element would require in order to fit all the content in the viewport without using a vertical scrollbar. The height is measured in the same way as clientHeight: it includes the element's padding, but not its border, margin or horizontal scrollbar.

Same is the case for all of these with width instead of height.

Answer 4

To know the difference you have to understand the box model, but basically:

clientHeight:

returns the inner height of an element in pixels, including padding but not the horizontal scrollbar height, border, or margin

offsetHeight:

is a measurement which includes the element borders, the element vertical padding, the element horizontal scrollbar (if present, if rendered) and the element CSS height.

scrollHeight:

is a measurement of the height of an element's content including content not visible on the screen due to overflow

---

I will make it easier:

Consider:

<element>                                     
    <!-- *content*: child nodes: -->        | content
    A child node as text node               | of
    <div id="another_child_node"></div>     | the
    ... and I am the 4th child node         | element
</element>                                    

scrollHeight: ENTIRE content & padding (visible or not)
_{Height of all content + paddings, despite of height of the element.}

clientHeight: VISIBLE content & padding
_{Only visible height: content portion limited by explicitly defined height of the element.}

offsetHeight: VISIBLE content & padding + border + scrollbar
_{Height occupied by the element on document.}