Declare this in your header or in your body for initilialising your div <style> div.solution{ width:400px; } </style> declare the div within the body <div class="solution"> abracadabra.....poof poof</div> use this line to slowly reduce the width of the div to 0px $("div.solution").animate({width:"0px"},500); use this line to slowly increase the width of the div to 400px $("div.solution").animate({width:"400px"},800); The last parameter denotes the time to run the function for....