Flexbox: Header, Centered Body And Sticky Footer Overflow

Update This has been solved thanks to LGSon's comment below Updated codepen I am trying to setup a layout much like the Holy grail. The difference here is that I am looking for a d

Solution 1:

If you change your html, body rule to this

html, body {
  margin: 0;
  text-align: center;
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
}

and then add this new rule

body {
  min-height: 100vh;
}

and then change from height: calc(100% - 120px); to flex-grow: 1; in your content rule it will work as you asked for.

The trick here is to make your body a flex container, and then, by setting the content to flex-grow: 1 it will fill the remaining space when the content is smaller, and the min-height: 100vh will allow it to properly grow higher than the viewport when the content is bigger.

Updated codepen

Stack snippet

html, body {
  margin: 0;
  text-align: center;
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
}

body {
  min-height: 100vh;
}

.header {
  height: 60px;
  line-height: 60px;
  background: rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.5);
}

.content {
  flex-grow: 1;
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  align-items: center;
  justify-content: center;
  background: rgba(0, 255, 0, 0.5);
}

.contentp {
  width: 50%;
}

.footer {
  height: 60px;
  line-height: 60px;
  background: rgba(0, 0, 255, 0.5);
}

.header, .footer {
  font-weight: bold;
}

<divclass="header">
    Header
</div><divclass="content"><h1>I am the content</h1><p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
	Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
	</p></div><divclass="footer">
    Footer
</div>

---

And if someone want to enable the content to scroll instead of the whole page, change the body rule to height: 100vh and add overflow: auto to the content rule

Updated codepen

Stack snippet

html, body {
  margin: 0;
  text-align: center;
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
}

body {
  height: 100vh;
}

.header {
  height: 60px;
  line-height: 60px;
  background: rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.5);
}

.content {
  flex-grow: 1;
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  align-items: center;
  background: rgba(0, 255, 0, 0.5);
  overflow: auto;
}

.contentp {
  width: 50%;
}

.footer {
  height: 60px;
  line-height: 60px;
  background: rgba(0, 0, 255, 0.5);
}

.header, .footer {
  font-weight: bold;
}

<divclass="header">
    Header
</div><divclass="content"><h1>I am the content</h1><p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
	Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
	</p></div><divclass="footer">
    Footer
</div>

Solution 2:

After using position: fixed; on the header and footer, my syggestion is to:

1. remove the opaque background colours, and replace them with non opaque ones that look exactly the same (this I have already done)
2. remove the background colour for the article, and give the html, body the background-color instead
3. use background-color instead of background in this case:

html,
body {
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  background-color: #7FFF7F;
  text-align: center;

}

.header {
  position: fixed;
  top: 0px;
  height: 60px;
  line-height: 60px;
  width: 100%;
  background-color: #FF7F7F;
}

.content {
  overflow: scroll;
  padding: 60px060px0;
  display: -webkit-box;
  display: -ms-flexbox;
  display: flex;
  -webkit-box-orient: vertical;
  -webkit-box-direction: normal;
      -ms-flex-direction: column;
          flex-direction: column;
  -webkit-box-align: center;
      -ms-flex-align: center;
          align-items: center;
  -webkit-box-pack: center;
      -ms-flex-pack: center;
          justify-content: center;
}

.contentp {
  width: 50%;
}

.footer {
  position: fixed;
  bottom: 0px;
  height: 60px;
  line-height: 60px;
  width: 100%;
  background-color: #7F7FFF;
}

.header,
.footer {
  font-weight: bold;
}

<divclass="header">
    Header
</div><divclass="content"><h1>I am the content</h1><p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p></div><divclass="footer">
    Footer
</div>

CodePen