CSS multi-column layout
TheCSS multi-column layout module lets you divide content across multiple columns. By using the properties in this module, you can define the preferred number and width of columns, the gap size between columns, and the visual appearance of the optional column dividing lines (known as column rules). You can also define how content should flow from column to column and how to break content between columns.
In this article
Multi-column layout in action
In this example, the 1967 speech from Canada's centennial,A Lament for Confederation, by Chief Dan George, is displayed across multiple columns, similar to the way articles are displayed in printed newspapers. If you have JavaScript enabled, controls enable changing the preferred column number and width, the width of the gap between columns, whether the title and a sample blockquote should be contained in a single column or made to span all columns, and whether breaking within the paragraphs should be avoided.
<article> <div> <h1>A Lament for Confederation</h1> <p>—Chief Dan George, 1967</p> </div> <p> How long have I known you, Oh Canada? A hundred years? Yes, a hundred years. And many, many tides more. And today, when you celebrate your hundred years, Oh Canada, I am sad for all the Indian people throughout the land. </p> <p> For I have known you when your forests were mine; when they gave me my meat and my clothing. I have known you in your fruits and rivers where your fish flashed and danced in the sun, where the waters said 'come and eat of my abundance.' I have known you in the freedom of your winds. And my spirit, like your winds, once roamed this good lands. </p> <blockquote> <p> But in long the hundred years since the white man came, I have seen that freedom disappear just like the salmon going mysteriously out to sea. </p> </blockquote> <p> The white man's strange customs I could not understand, pressed down upon me until I could no longer breathe. </p> <p> When I fought to protect my home and my land, I was called a savage. When I neither understood nor welcomed this new way of life, I was called lazy. When I tried to rule my people, I was stripped of my authority. </p> <p> My nation was ignored in your history textbooks – we were less important in the history of Canada than the buffalo that ranged the plains. I was ridiculed in your plays and motion pictures, and when I drank your fire-water, I got drunk – very, very drunk. And I forgot. </p> <p> Oh Canada, how can I celebrate with you this centenary, this hundred years? Shall I thank you for the reserves that are left me of my beautiful forests? Shall I thank you for the canned fish of my rivers? Shall I thank you for the loss of my pride and authority, even among my own people? For the lack of my will to fight back? No! I must forget what is past and gone. </p> <p> Oh God in heaven! Give me the courage of the olden chiefs. Let me wrestle with my surroundings. Let me once again, as in the days of old, dominate my environment. Let me humbly accept this new culture and through it rise up and go on. </p> <p> Oh god, like the thunderbird of old, I shall rise again out of the sea. I shall grab the instruments of the white man's success – his education, his skills, and with these new tools I shall build my race into the proudest segment of your society. And, before I follow the great chiefs who have gone before us, I shall see these things come to pass. </p> <p> I shall see our young braves and our chiefs sitting in the house of law and government, ruling and being ruled by the knowledge and freedoms of our great land. So shall we shatter the barriers of our isolation. So shall the next hundred years be the greatest in the proud history of our tribes and nations. </p></article><fieldset> <legend> <button aria-expanded="true" aria-controls="controls"> Column options </button> </legend> <div> <p> <input type="range" min="0" max="5" value="5" /> <label for="colCount">Max # of columns:</label> </p> <p> <input type="range" min="2" max="40" value="10" step="2" /> <label for="colWidth">Min width of columns:</label> </p> <p> <input type="range" min="0" max="10" value="1" step="0.5" /> <label for="gapSize">Gap size:</label> </p> <p> <input type="checkbox" checked /> <label for="colSpan">Byline spans all columns</label> </p> <p> <input type="checkbox" /> <label for="blockSpan">Blockquote spans all columns</label> </p> <p> <input type="checkbox" /> <label for="colFill">Balance columns</label> </p> <p> <input type="checkbox" /> <label for="break">Don't break paragraphs</label> </p> </div></fieldset>const page = document.querySelector("article");const title = document.querySelector(".title");const options = document.querySelector("#options");const legend = document.querySelector("#options > legend");const legendBtn = document.querySelector("#options > legend > button");const blockquote = document.getElementsByTagName("blockquote")[0];const colCount = document.getElementById("colCount");const colWidth = document.getElementById("colWidth");const gapSize = document.getElementById("gapSize");const colSpan = document.getElementById("colSpan");const blockSpan = document.getElementById("blockSpan");const colFill = document.getElementById("colFill");const breakP = document.getElementById("break");// make options visible if js is enabledoptions.style.display = "revert";legendBtn.addEventListener("click", () => { showAndHideMenu();});colCount.addEventListener("change", () => { page.style.columnCount = colCount.value;});colWidth.addEventListener("change", () => { page.style.columnWidth = `${colWidth.value}em`;});gapSize.addEventListener("change", () => { page.style.gap = `${gapSize.value}em`;});colSpan.addEventListener("change", () => { setColSpan(colSpan, title);});blockSpan.addEventListener("change", () => { setColSpan(blockSpan, blockquote);});colFill.addEventListener("change", () => { if (colFill.checked) { page.style.columnFill = "balance"; } else { page.style.columnFill = "auto"; }});breakP.addEventListener("change", () => { if (breakP.checked) { page.classList.add("breakInside"); } else { page.classList.remove("breakInside"); }});function showAndHideMenu() { if (legendBtn.getAttribute("aria-expanded") === "true") { // close it legendBtn.setAttribute("aria-expanded", "false"); legend.classList.add("closed"); legend.classList.remove("open"); } else { // open it legendBtn.setAttribute("aria-expanded", "true"); legend.classList.remove("closed"); legend.classList.add("open"); }}function setColSpan(control, element) { if (control.checked) { element.style.columnSpan = "all"; } else { element.style.columnSpan = "none"; }}article { column-count: 5; column-width: 8em; widows: 3; orphans: 3; gap: 1em; column-rule: 2px dashed #666666; height: 50em;}.title { column-span: all; display: flex; align-items: baseline; gap: 1em; flex-wrap: wrap;}p { margin: 0 0 1em 0; line-height: 1.4;}.breakInside * { break-inside: avoid;}#options { position: fixed; top: 1rem; right: 1rem; background: white; display: none;}fieldset p { margin-bottom: 0.25em;}legend { position: relative; top: 0; transition: 200ms;}legend.closed { top: 0.75em;}legend.closed + #controls { display: none;}legend { background-color: #dedede; padding: 0.5em;}legend > button { all: unset; cursor: pointer;}legend.closed { margin: -1em; display: inline-block;}blockquote { border: 2px dashed red; margin: 0 0 0.25em 0;}blockquote p { margin-bottom: 0;}blockquote p::before,blockquote p::after { content: '"'; font-size: 1.2em; vertical-align: baseline; color: red;}Note:Multiple-column layout is closely related topaged media. Each column box is a fragment, much like each printed page is a fragment of a document. Using the properties defined in theCSS fragmentation module, you can control how content breaks between columns and pages.
Reference
>Properties
column-fillcolumn-gapcolumn-spancolumn-ruleshorthandcolumnsshorthand
Note:Bear in mind that setting container height and line length can pose challenges for people with visual or cognitive disabilities.WCAG Success Criterion 1.4.8 states that even when the text size is doubled, content should not need to be scrolled.
Selectors and pseudo-elements
Guides
- Basic concepts of multi-column layouts
Overview of the multiple-column layout specification.
- Using multi-column layouts
Guide to using multi-column properties for laying out text.
- Styling columns
Guide to styling columns and managing spacing between columns.
- Spanning and balancing
How to make elements span across all columns and control the way columns are filled.
- Handling overflow in multi-column layout
What happens when an item overflows the column it is in and what happens when there is too much columned content to fit a container.
- Handling content breaks in multi-column layout
Introduction to the fragmentation specification and how to control where column content breaks.
- Creating CSS carousels
Create pure-CSS carousel UI features using scroll buttons, scroll markers, and generated columns.
Related concepts
CSS fragmentation module
CSS box alignment module
CSS box sizing module
CSS overflow module
CSS display module
- Block formatting context guide
Specifications
| Specification |
|---|
| CSS Multi-column Layout Module Level 1> |
| CSS Multi-column Layout Module Level 2> |
See also
- Learn: multiple-column layout
- CSS fragmentation module
- CSS flexible box layout module
- CSS grid layout module
- CSS paged media module