Test your skills: Overflow

The aim of this skill test is to assess whether you understand overflow in CSS and how to manage it.

Note: You can try out solutions in the interactive editors below. However, it may be helpful to download the code and use an online tool such as CodePen, jsFiddle, or Glitch to work on the tasks.

If you get stuck, then ask us for help — see the Assessment or further help section at the bottom of this page.

Task 1

In this task, the content is overflowing the box because it has a fixed height. Keep the height but cause the box to have scrollbars only if there is enough text to cause an overflow. Test by removing some of the text from the HTML, that if there is only a small amount of text that does not overflow, no scrollbar appears.

A small box with a border and a vertical scrollbar.

Try updating the live code below to recreate the finished example:

Download the starting point for this task to work in your own editor or in an online editor.

Task 2

In this task, there is an image in the box that is bigger than the dimensions of the box so that it overflows visibly. Change it so that any image outside of the box is hidden.

Your final result should look like the image below:

A box with an image which fills the box but does not spill out the edges.

Try updating the live code below to recreate the finished example:

Download the starting point for this task to work in your own editor or in an online editor.

Assessment or further help

You can practice these examples in the Interactive Editors above.

If you would like your work assessed or are stuck and want to ask for help:

  1. Put your work into an online shareable editor such as CodePen, jsFiddle, or Glitch. You can write the code yourself or use the starting point files linked to in the above sections.
  2. Write a post asking for assessment and/or help at the MDN Discourse forum Learning category. Your post should include:
    • A descriptive title such as "Assessment wanted for overflow skill test 1".
    • Details of what you have already tried and what you would like us to do; for example, tell us if you're stuck and need help or want an assessment.
    • A link to the example you want assessed or need help with, in an online shareable editor (as mentioned in step 1 above). This is a good practice to get into — it's very hard to help someone with a coding problem if you can't see their code.
    • A link to the actual task or assessment page, so we can find the question you want help with.