vertical scrollbar whitespace when not displayed

While showing a page in IE6, whitespace on the right appears but no scrollb

[cyppher]

Dear all,

I've a problem with designing a page. The target-audience's browser is IE6.

I've a massive stylesheet in which all kinds of elements (css) are defined. The stylesheet is responsible for showing this webpage with a large number of different screen-elements, such as divs and tables (for tabular data).

Something weird is happening:
On the right of the screen, there's a vertical column of whitespace (width 20px) as if IE wants to show a vertical scrollbar. But there's no need for a scrollbar on this particular page. (The content fits the screen without having to scroll the page).

I've set all widths to 100% in de stylesheet, including the body and table. When I use

overflow: hidden;

the scrollbar-whitespace disappears, but when the scrollbar ís needed, it wont show up (obviously).

Does anyone know if this is a typical IE6 bug or if there's somekind of a workflow for this particular problem?

I'd like to show a screenshot, can't find the image-upload button in this forum however.

Thanks in advance for thinking with me.

Cyppher.

[cyppher]

does anyone recognize this problem or know how to work around it?
I've tried several options, including each table/div's properties, however I can't find any way to get rid of the scrollbar whitespace...

thanks in advance,
cyppher.

[cyppher]

anyone?

[hexdj]

I can't tell for sure, but I think I've had that problem before and in my case it seemed to be related to my DOCTYPE.

Sorry I can't help you any further, I am no expert.

[cyppher]

that could be the issue here, as there's no DOCTYPE mentioned in the html-source.
But when I use html 4 strictly or transition, the whitespace problem still exists...

I'll try some other ways now, but if you know what helped you, please let me know!

THanks!

[antidote45]

As far as I know that's just the way IE handles the question of where to put the scrollbar. Mozilla/Firefox shift all the content over to make room for the scrollbar and IE creates a space there for a scrollbar to appear when it's needed so nothing ever shifts.

I've heard you might be able to remove it with some fancy javascript but why bother? Also I think if you use frames the scrollbar is handled differently and appears on the inside when it's needed but frames have their own big drawbacks.