Question

I have a div that I want to specify a FIXED width and height for, and also a padding which can be changed without decreasing the original DIV width/height or increasing it, is there a CSS trick for that, or an alternative using padding?

Answer 1

Solution is to wrap your padded div, with fixed width outer div

HTML

<div class="outer">
    <div class="inner">

        <!-- your content -->

    </div><!-- end .inner -->
</div><!-- end .outer -->

CSS

.outer, .inner {
    display: block;
}

.outer {
    /* specify fixed width */
    width: 300px;
    padding: 0;
}

.inner {
    /* specify padding, can be changed while remaining fixed width of .outer */
    padding: 5px;
}