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Scale a text to fit inside of an element

Written byPhuoc Nguyen
Created
16 Mar, 2020
Last updated
07 May, 2021
Category
Level 2 — Intermediate
Let's say that we want to scale a text inside a headline:
html
<div id="headline">Hello World</div>
First of all, we need to measure the width of element with its current font size and text content. For more information, you can take a look at this post.
js
const measureWidth = function(text, font) {
// Measure the width of given text for given font
...
};

// Query the element
const ele = document.getElementById('headline');

// Get the styles
const styles = window.getComputedStyle(ele);

// Get the font size and font style
const font = styles.font;
const fontSize = parseInt(styles.fontSize);

const measured = measureWidth(ele.textContent, font);
Now we can calculate how much the element is scaled by comparing the measured width and the full width:
js
const scale = ele.clientWidth / parseFloat(measured);
Finally, we set the font size as the element scales up to full width:
js
const scaleFontSize = Math.floor(scale * fontSize);
ele.style.fontSize = `${scaleFontSize}px`;

Demo

See also

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Phước Nguyễn