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Shrink web page to fit content

I am in the process of reworking a simple web site so that it can run on a thumb drive, aka with no server involved.
On a page on the original I had a "select" control that would execute a script that read a file and loaded images and some text.
Since I can't load files from the client's computer, I put all the information on the page, each entry in a separate div, each with a unique id, and am using style.visible = "hidden" and "visible" to hide the ones I don't want to see and show the ones I do.
Problem is, the page stays the same size (length) as if each of the divs was visible, and the space occupied by the divs I have hidden is not released.
How do I get the hidden divs to give up their space?
Here's the original page: https://www.vintagebankantiques.net/people.html

A css rule like
.class-of-divs{
min-width: 100%
}
or possibly
.class-of-divs{
min-width: 100vw
}
should help. Without having a JS fiddle or something it's hard to say more.
What these rules do is say that those divs must all be 100% of the width of the page, and shouldn't change size based on the presence of the other divs.
A problem you might get is that the divs will still get shifted in position by their neighbours. To prevent that, you could try setting display: none instead of visible: hidden. The key difference is that a div with a visibility of hidden still affects page layout. A div with a display of none does not affect page layout.

overflow the contents of one div into another div

I have 2 divs on a page and the first div has text content only.
Currently, when the content of the first div overflows it gets truncated since the CSS for the first div is:
.one {
overflow: hidden
width: 100%;
white-space: nowrap;
}
But on an overflow, could I make the overflow text appear in a 2nd div?
For example, let's say the text content in the first div is "Hello there" and it displays "Hello" but "there" is cut off because of overflow hidden, can I make "there" appear in a 2nd div?
I'm sure this is not out the box behaviour but I wondered if its possible or if anyone knows a lib to do this. Thanks.

The native capacities of CSS do not allow for this kind of behaviour, since it is quite special.
If you want to manipulate the text so that it gets displayed in different parts of your DOM, depending on a determinate critera, you will have to use Javascript to do so.
Use Javascript to create a kind of parser that detects if the text matches the criteria needed to separate them, and if it does so, manipulate the content so that it is displayed in the correct element.
EDIT:
If what you are trying to do, though, is basically format differently the first line from the rest of the text, what you might need is simple the ::fist-line pseudoselector.
This way you can set the first line to have a determinate size, color, etc.Notice though that only a certain amount of properties can be applied to this selector.

I had this exact problem tonight. I have 2 divs side by side, I want the text of the first div to spill over into the 2nd div if needed. I solved it with z-index, make the div with the text that spills out have a higher z-index than the adjacent one that you want to spill over.

Multiple Footer/Header via CSS in 1 DIV

I generate a PDF File from a HTML Source. Each Page has a height of 1402px. First solution was, a DIV for each side.Placing Footer and Header was easy then. Problem is: if the content (dynamically generated) doesn't fit the page div, it overlaps the footer and in worst case, destroys the layout. So all the Pages and their content goes into one div, but how do i add 300px of margin, which I need for Footer and Header?
I tried to display my problem in this picture:
The whole white thing is one Div.
The black lines display each page in the Div but they are not in the code.
The green lines display where I need a margin so the red content doesn't overlap, but continues on the second page instead.
Red -> current situation
Blue -> what I need
I can also use Javascript in the document.
Can you help me?
http://i.stack.imgur.com/iMFBb.png
Here is the fiddle of how its solved until now:
https://jsfiddle.net/8yvpavd7/1/

I suggest you ensure that the height of your page is lower than a specific limit. Since you are using absolute sizes and positioning anyway you can easily check that using jquery (example:)
$('#page1').height() / $('#page1').outerHeight()
Since we don't know anything about your datastructure, i can only assume what you need. The following fiddle should explain what i'm talking about https://jsfiddle.net/rkvs5s1z/2/
You could remove parts of your content until it fits the height. You need to store the removed data.
The fiddle does not store the data in the correct direction - it should only demonstrate how this could work
Afterwards you append a new page including your headers and footers.
You might need to repeat these steps if the content of one page is bigger than two pages.
I would also suggest to improve the shown example by not slicing single characters but complete words. If your pages contain html you might also need to check for html code and correct nesting.

is it possible to print the contents of a div on an A4 using its whole width?

I want to print the contents of a div(a table containing info) using jquery. I was wondering if it's possible to resize the table in order to use the whole A4s width.
Thanks a lot

Do you mean you want to use a bleed to print right up to the edge of the page, or to simply have your navigation and other elements disappear so the width can take up the whole printing area (but still have page margins)?
I don't believe browsers support full bleed printing.
However, if you just want to use the full area with margins, most browsers should auto-size to the largest element on the page. So, use a print stylesheet.
For testing, Firebug can conveniently show the print view in the browser, or you can simply remove the media="print"
Hide other elements and make the div take up the full width of the viewport
Make sure to use width:auto; on that for best results. Since paper and screen are very different proportions, you don't want the browser mistakenly sizing-down your text because both are defined in pixels and it thinks you want it to preserve proportions.

get div current (rendered) width with javascript

Hey, Ive got an php script dragging some images from a database and displaying them using float:left; so they go left to right.
However unless in the css i define i width for the container they jump down onto a 2nd line.
So the question IS!
How for the life of me could I get it to figure out the width of the content and then set the width attribute via javascript all on the one load.
I did have a slight worry that this wouldnt be easily possible as it wud have had to render the images/layout first to get a width before then adjusting it.
Ideas please people!! x

Your question has to do with how the flows of floats work...
If two images are floated and the sum of their widths is wider than the containing element, they will wrap (similar to the way words in a paragraph wrap).
Visual references describing the flow of "float"ed elements (way too difficult to describe in a few words):
http://css.maxdesign.com.au/floatutorial/introduction.htm