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HTMLElement: offsetParent property

files/en-us/web/api/htmlelement/offsetparent/index.md

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{{ APIRef("HTML DOM") }}

The HTMLElement.offsetParent read-only property returns a reference to the element which is the closest (nearest in the containment hierarchy) positioned ancestor element.

A positioned ancestor might be:

  • a containing block for absolutely-positioned elements
  • an element with a different effective zoom value (that is, the product of all zoom scales of its parents) from this element
  • td, th, table in case the element itself is static positioned.

If there is no positioned ancestor element, the body is returned.

[!NOTE] offsetParent returns null in the following situations:

  • The element or any ancestor has the display property set to none.
  • The element has the position property set to fixed and its containing block is the viewport. If the containing block is not the viewport, offsetParent returns the nearest ancestor that forms a containing block, for example, an ancestor with transform, perspective, or filter styles set.
  • The element is <body> or <html>.

offsetParent is useful because {{domxref("HTMLElement.offsetTop","offsetTop")}} and {{domxref("HTMLElement.offsetLeft","offsetLeft")}} are relative to its padding edge.

Value

An object reference to the element in which the current element is offset.

Specifications

{{Specifications}}

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}}