[SOLVED] Calculate text width with JavaScript

Calculate text width with JavaScript

I'd like to use JavaScript to calculate the width of a string. Is this possible without having to use a monospace typeface?

If it's not built-in, my only idea is to create a table of widths for each character, but this is pretty unreasonable especially supporting Unicode and different type sizes (and all browsers for that matter).

Solution

Create a DIV styled with the following styles. In your JavaScript, set the font size and attributes that you are trying to measure, put your string in the DIV, then read the current width and height of the DIV. It will stretch to fit the contents and the size will be within a few pixels of the string rendered size.

var fontSize = 12;
var test = document.getElementById("Test");
test.style.fontSize = fontSize;
var height = (test.clientHeight + 1) + "px";
var width = (test.clientWidth + 1) + "px"

console.log(height, width);

#Test
{
    position: absolute;
    visibility: hidden;
    height: auto;
    width: auto;
    white-space: nowrap; /* Thanks to Herb Caudill comment */
}

<div id="Test">
    abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
</div>