Page widening

A web browser normally places as many words in a single line as will fit the width of the browser window. However, there are cases where horizontal scrolling is needed. For a large picture, table or diagram this may be worthwhile, but without special measures the rest of the web page is also affected, with long lines that can only be read by cumbersome horizontal scrolling.

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This page is very wide due to the examples below. The remainder of this entry is still readable without horizontal scrolling due to explicit use of the HTML tag for forcing a newline: <br>.

Related Topics:
HTML tag - Newline

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Causes of page widening include:

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• a wide image;
• a very long "word", for example Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahintarayutthayamahadilokphopnopparatrajathaniburiromudomrajaniwesmahasatharnamornphimarnavatarnsathitsakkattiyavisanukamprasit;
• a long line with the specification that the browser should not break it (for instance, use of the HTML tags <pre> or <nobr>);
• a table with many columns, in particular if columns contain a long word (the minimum width of a column is the width of the longest word in it);
• a table where the html-code specifies a large width.

Authors of web pages should realize that users:

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• may have a lower screen resolution
• may be using a larger font
• may be viewing several pages in more than 1 window at the same time
• may be using a PDA
• may be using a mobile phone

All these may cause a wide page requiring horizontal scrolling.

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