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

/* 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 the column-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

<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

.content-box {
  column-count: 3;
}

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Multi-column Layout Module Level 1 # cc

Browser compatibility

	Desktop					Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Opera	Safari	Chrome Android	Firefox for Android	Opera Android	Safari on IOS	Samsung Internet	WebView Android
`column-count`	501	1212	52 1.5–74 Before version 37, multiple columns didn't work with `display: table-caption` elements.	3715	93	5018	52 4–79 Before version 37, multiple columns didn't work with `display: table-caption` elements.	3714	92	5.01.0	504.4
`auto`	1	12	1.5	15	3	18	4	14	2	1.0	4.4