Home/ Questions/Q 623881
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-13T19:08:27+00:00

This is probably a basic CSS question, but I am not fluent in CSS

  • 0

This is probably a basic CSS question, but I am not fluent in CSS and just seem to be going in circles.

Here’s what I have in English: I have a fixed width select element of 400px. The text for each of the options does not fit in that 400px width. I don’t get a horizontal scroll bar, it just cuts off the text. How do I get the scroll bar?

Here’s what I have in HTML/CSS:

<div>
  <select style="width=400px">
    <option>this text is too wide to fit and gets cut off.....</option>
    ...
  </select>
</div>

I’ve tried the overflow property, but I’m either using it incorrectly or it doesn’t work on the select element.

How do I get the horizontal scroll bar?

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Form elements are notoriously difficult to style.

    For your width setting, you have a small typo. You need

    <select style="width: 400px">

    Otherwise, I think horizontal scrollbars can’t be achieved using a normal select element. You would have to resort to a JavaScript based alternative like SexyCombo, which may be customizable to have a scroll bar. More options here: 11 jQuery Plugins to Enhance HTML Dropdowns

    • 0