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How to Size Input Boxes with CSS

Published in HTML Input Sizing 3 mins read

To make an input box bigger in HTML, you primarily use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to adjust its dimensions.

The most common and effective way to make an HTML input box larger is by applying CSS rules to control its width and height properties.

According to the reference provided, you can modify height and width of input box according to your need using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). This gives you precise control over how your input fields appear.

You can apply CSS styles in several ways:

  1. Inline Styles: Directly within the HTML tag using the style attribute. (Less recommended for multiple styles).
  2. Internal Styles: Within <style> tags in the HTML document's <head>.
  3. External Stylesheet: In a separate .css file linked to your HTML document (most recommended for larger projects).

Here's how you use CSS properties for sizing:

  • width: Controls the horizontal size of the input box.
  • height: Controls the vertical size of the input box.

You can specify values in various units like pixels (px), percentages (%), ems (em), etc.

Examples

Let's look at some practical examples using CSS.

Sizing with Width and Height

<input type="text" class="large-input" placeholder="Enter text here">
/* Using an external or internal stylesheet */
.large-input {
  width: 300px; /* Make it 300 pixels wide */
  height: 50px; /* Make it 50 pixels tall */
  padding: 10px; /* Add some internal spacing */
  font-size: 16px; /* Increase text size for better readability */
}

This CSS rule targets an input element with the class large-input and sets its dimensions.

Using Percentages for Responsive Sizing

You can use percentages for width to make the input box size relative to its container, which is useful for responsive design.

.responsive-input {
  width: 80%; /* Take up 80% of the parent element's width */
  padding: 10px;
  font-size: 1em; /* Size relative to parent font size */
}
<input type="text" class="responsive-input" placeholder="Percentage width">

Handling Multi-Line Input with textarea

If you need a larger input area that allows users to enter text over multiple lines, the <input type="text"> element is not suitable. Instead, you can use textarea tag here also you can use CSS to modify its height and width.

The <textarea> element is specifically designed for multi-line text input.

Sizing textarea

Similar to input boxes, you can use CSS width and height properties to control the size of a <textarea>.

<textarea class="large-textarea" placeholder="Enter multi-line text here"></textarea>
.large-textarea {
  width: 400px; /* Make it 400 pixels wide */
  height: 150px; /* Make it 150 pixels tall */
  padding: 10px;
  font-size: 16px;
  resize: vertical; /* Allow vertical resizing by the user */
}

While <textarea> also has rows and cols attributes for basic sizing, using CSS height and width offers more precise control and is the standard approach for styling.

Summary of Sizing Techniques

Element Purpose Primary Sizing Method CSS Properties Used Notes
<input> Single-line text CSS width, height Best for forms, search fields, etc.
<textarea> Multi-line text CSS width, height Best for comments, messages, descriptions

In conclusion, leverage CSS with the width and height properties to make your input boxes and text areas the size you need.

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