column-count
Baseline Widely available
This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since March 2017.
The column-count
CSS property breaks an element's content into the specified number of columns.
Try it
column-count: 2;
column-count: 3;
column-count: 4;
column-count: auto;
column-width: 8rem;
<section id="default-example">
<p id="example-element">
London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in
Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets
as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it
would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so,
waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.
</p>
</section>
#example-element {
width: 100%;
text-align: left;
}
Syntax
css
/* Keyword value */
column-count: auto;
/* <integer> value */
column-count: 3;
/* Global values */
column-count: inherit;
column-count: initial;
column-count: revert;
column-count: revert-layer;
column-count: unset;
Values
auto
-
The number of columns is determined by other CSS properties, such as
column-width
. <integer>
-
Is a strictly positive
<integer>
describing the ideal number of columns into which the content of the element will be flowed. If thecolumn-width
is also set to a non-auto
value, it merely indicates the maximum allowed number of columns.
Formal definition
Initial value | auto |
---|---|
Applies to | Block containers except table wrapper boxes |
Inherited | no |
Computed value | as specified |
Animation type | an integer |
Formal syntax
column-count =
auto |
<integer [1,∞]>
Examples
Splitting a paragraph across three columns
HTML
html
<p class="content-box">
This is a bunch of text split into three columns using the CSS
<code>column-count</code>
property. The text is equally distributed over the columns.
</p>
CSS
css
.content-box {
column-count: 3;
}
Result
Specifications
Specification |
---|
CSS Multi-column Layout Module Level 1 # cc |
Browser compatibility
Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHubdesktop | mobile | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
column-count | ||||||||||||
auto |
Legend
Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.
- Full support
- Full support
- Requires a vendor prefix or different name for use.
- Has more compatibility info.
The compatibility table on this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.
See also
column-width
,columns
shorthandcolumn-rule-color
,column-rule-style
,column-rule-width
,column-rule
shorthand- Learn: Multiple-column Layout (Learn Layout)
- Basic Concepts of Multicol