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column-height

files/en-us/web/css/reference/properties/column-height/index.md

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{{SeeCompatTable}}

The column-height CSS property specifies the height of the columns in a CSS multi-column layout.

The {{cssxref("columns")}} shorthand property can be used to set the column-height, {{cssxref("column-count")}}, and {{cssxref("column-width")}} property values in a single declaration.

Syntax

css
/* Keyword */
column-height: auto;

/* <length> value */
column-height: 300px;
column-height: 25em;
column-height: 70vh;

/* Global values */
column-height: inherit;
column-height: initial;
column-height: revert;
column-height: revert-layer;
column-height: unset;

Values

  • auto
    • : The initial value. If the content container has a set height, the content columns will grow to that height, overflowing to the side if the content doesn't fit inside the container. If the content container does not have a set height, the content will be equally distributed between the columns generated inside the container.
  • {{cssxref("<length>")}}
    • : The height of the columns. Must be non-negative.

Description

The column-height property sets the height of the columns in a multi-column layout. This is useful for constraining the column height for readability when setting multiple columns using the {{cssxref("column-count")}} or {{cssxref("column-width")}} property.

Without column-height, if the height of the multi-col content exceeds the viewport height, readers will need to scroll down to the end of a column and then back up to the top of the next column. One possible fix would be to set a fixed height on the content container, however, excess columns will then overflow to the side, and readers will have to scroll in the inline direction to read all the content.

The column-height property, along with {{cssxref("column-wrap")}}, allows you to set a specific height for the columns and wrap them onto a new row of columns when the container edge is reached.

The default value of column-wrap is auto, which resolves to wrap when column-height is set to a <length> value; wrap allows the fixed-height columns to wrap onto multiple rows. When column-height is equal to auto, column-wrap: auto resolves to nowrap, allowing the columns to overflow horizontally if a fixed container height is set. As a result of this default behavior, generally you don't need to explicitly set the column-wrap property.

Formal definition

{{cssinfo}}

Formal syntax

{{csssyntax}}

Examples

Basic usage

This example demonstrates basic usage of the column-height property to create a wrapped multi-col layout.

HTML

We include a poem by Dr. Seuss using an {{htmlelement("ol")}} containing 28 {{htmlelement("li")}}s, followed by the author's name in a {{htmlelement("p")}}.

html
<ol>
  <li>One fish</li>
  <li>Two fish</li>
  <li>Red fish</li>
  <li>Blue fish</li>
  ...
</ol>
<p>-- Dr. Seuss</p>
html
<ol>
  <li>One fish</li>
  <li>Two fish</li>
  <li>Red fish</li>
  <li>Blue fish</li>
  <li>Black fish</li>
  <li>Blue fish</li>
  <li>Old fish</li>
  <li>New fish.</li>
  <li>This one has a little star.</li>
  <li>This one has a little car.</li>
  <li>Say! What a lot</li>
  <li>Of fish there are.</li>
  <li>Yes. Some are red. And some are blue.</li>
  <li>Some are old. And some are new.</li>
  <li>Some are sad.</li>
  <li>And some are glad.</li>
  <li>And some are very, very bad.</li>
  <li>Why are they</li>
  <li>Sad and glad and bad?</li>
  <li>I do not know.</li>
  <li>Go ask your dad.</li>
  <li>Some are thin.</li>
  <li>And some are fat.</li>
  <li>The fat one has</li>
  <li>A yellow hat.</li>
  <li>From there to here, from here to there,</li>
  <li>Funny things</li>
  <li>Are everywhere.</li>
</ol>
<p>--Dr. Seuss</p>

CSS

We define the <ol> to be a multi-column container by setting the {{cssxref("column-width")}} property to 150px, meaning the container will contain as many columns as possible with each being at least 150px wide. The {{cssxref("gap")}} property of 2em sets a horizontal gap between columns and a vertical gap between rows of columns. We then set the column-height to 2em, causing the column-wrap property's default auto value to resolve to wrap to create wrapped rows of columns.

css
ol {
  column-width: 150px;
  gap: 2em;
  column-height: 3em;
}

Result

{{EmbedLiveSample("basic-example", "100%", "300")}}

Scroll-snapped columns

This example combines a wrapped multi-column layout with CSS scroll snapping, creating a usable experience where each scrolling action snaps a new row of columns neatly inside the full height of the viewport for comfortable reading.

HTML

The HTML, which contains multiple paragraphs of content from the MDN HTML, CSS, and JavaScript home pages, has been hidden for brevity.

html
<h1>HTML, CSS, and JavaScript summaries</h1>
<p>
  <strong>HTML</strong> (HyperText Markup Language) is the most basic building
  block of the Web. It defines the meaning and structure of web content. Other
  technologies besides HTML are generally used to describe a web page's
  appearance (CSS) or behavior (JavaScript).
</p>
<p>
  "Hypertext" refers to links that connect web pages to one another, either
  within a single website or between websites. Links are a fundamental aspect of
  the Web. By uploading content to the Internet and linking it to pages created
  by other people, you become an active participant in the World Wide Web.
</p>
<p>
  HTML uses "markup" to annotate text, images, and other content for display in
  a Web browser. HTML markup includes special "elements" such as
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/head"
    ><code>&lt;head&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/title"
    ><code>&lt;title&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/body"
    ><code>&lt;body&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/header"
    ><code>&lt;header&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/footer"
    ><code>&lt;footer&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/article"
    ><code>&lt;article&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/section"
    ><code>&lt;section&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/p"><code>&lt;p&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/div"
    ><code>&lt;div&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/span"
    ><code>&lt;span&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/img"
    ><code>&lt;img&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/aside"
    ><code>&lt;aside&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/audio"
    ><code>&lt;audio&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/canvas"
    ><code>&lt;canvas&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/datalist"
    ><code>&lt;datalist&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/details"
    ><code>&lt;details&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/embed"
    ><code>&lt;embed&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/nav"
    ><code>&lt;nav&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/search"
    ><code>&lt;search&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/output"
    ><code>&lt;output&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/progress"
    ><code>&lt;progress&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/video"
    ><code>&lt;video&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/ul"
    ><code>&lt;ul&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/ol"
    ><code>&lt;ol&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/li"
    ><code>&lt;li&gt;</code></a
  >
  and many others.
</p>
<p>
  An HTML element is set off from other text in a document by "tags", which
  consist of the element name surrounded by <code>&lt;</code> and
  <code>&gt;</code>. The name of an element inside a tag is case-insensitive.
  That is, it can be written in uppercase, lowercase, or a mixture. For example,
  the <code>&lt;title&gt;</code> tag can be written as
  <code>&lt;Title&gt;</code>, <code>&lt;TITLE&gt;</code>, or in any other way.
  However, the convention and recommended practice is to write tags in
  lowercase.
</p>

<hr />

<p>
  <strong>Cascading Style Sheets</strong> (<strong>CSS</strong>) is a
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/API/StyleSheet">stylesheet</a> language used to
  describe the presentation of a document written in
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML">HTML</a> or
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/XML/Guides/XML_introduction">XML</a> (including XML
  dialects such as <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/SVG">SVG</a>,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/MathML">MathML</a> or
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/XHTML">XHTML</a>). CSS describes how elements
  should be rendered on screen, on paper, in speech, or on other media.
</p>
<p>
  CSS is among the core languages of the <strong>open web</strong> and is
  standardized across web browsers according to
  <a href="https://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/#specs" class="external" target="_blank"
    >W3C specifications</a
  >. Previously, the development of various parts of CSS specification was done
  synchronously, which allowed the versioning of the latest recommendations. You
  might have heard about CSS1, CSS2.1, or even CSS3. There will never be a CSS3
  or a CSS4; rather, everything is now just "CSS" with individual CSS modules
  having version numbers.
</p>
<p>
  After CSS 2.1, the scope of the specification increased significantly and the
  progress on different CSS modules started to differ so much, that it became
  more effective to
  <a
    href="https://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/current-work"
    class="external"
    target="_blank"
    >develop and release recommendations separately per module</a
  >. Instead of versioning the CSS specification, W3C now periodically takes a
  snapshot of
  <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/css/" class="external" target="_blank"
    >the latest stable state of the CSS specification</a
  >
  and individual modules progress. CSS modules now have version numbers, or
  levels, such as
  <a
    href="https://drafts.csswg.org/css-color-5/"
    class="external"
    target="_blank"
    >CSS Color Module Level 5</a
  >.
</p>

<hr />

<p>
  <strong>JavaScript</strong> (<strong>JS</strong>) is a lightweight interpreted
  (or
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/Just_In_Time_Compilation"
    >just-in-time compiled</a
  >) programming language with
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/First-class_Function">first-class functions</a>.
  While it is most well-known as the scripting language for Web pages,
  <a
    href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript#Other_usage"
    class="external"
    target="_blank"
    >many non-browser environments</a
  >
  also use it, such as <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/Node.js">Node.js</a>,
  <a href="https://couchdb.apache.org/" class="external" target="_blank"
    >Apache CouchDB</a
  >
  and
  <a
    href="https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/acrobatsdk/"
    class="external"
    target="_blank"
    >Adobe Acrobat</a
  >. JavaScript is a
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/Prototype-based_programming">prototype-based</a
  >, <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/Garbage_collection">garbage-collected</a>,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/Dynamic_typing">dynamic</a> language, supporting
  multiple paradigms such as imperative, functional, and object-oriented.
</p>
<p>
  JavaScript's dynamic capabilities include runtime object construction,
  variable parameter lists, function variables, dynamic script creation (via
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/eval"
    ><code>eval</code></a
  >), object introspection (via
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Statements/for...in"
    ><code>for...in</code></a
  >
  and
  <a
    href="/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Object#static_methods"
    ><code>Object</code> utilities</a
  >), and source-code recovery (JavaScript functions store their source text and
  can be retrieved through
  <a
    href="/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Function/toString"
    ><code>toString()</code></a
  >).
</p>
<p>
  This section is dedicated to the JavaScript language itself, and not the parts
  that are specific to Web pages or other host environments. For information
  about <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/API">APIs</a> that are specific to Web
  pages, please see <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/API">Web APIs</a> and
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/DOM">DOM</a>.
</p>
<p>
  The standards for JavaScript are the
  <a href="https://tc39.es/ecma262/" class="external" target="_blank"
    >ECMAScript Language Specification</a
  >
  (ECMA-262) and the
  <a href="https://tc39.es/ecma402/" class="external" target="_blank"
    >ECMAScript Internationalization API specification</a
  >
  (ECMA-402). As soon as one browser implements a feature, we try to document
  it. This means that cases where some
  <a href="https://github.com/tc39/proposals" class="external" target="_blank"
    >proposals for new ECMAScript features</a
  >
  have already been implemented in browsers, documentation and examples in MDN
  articles may use some of those new features. Most of the time, this happens
  between the
  <a href="https://tc39.es/process-document/" class="external" target="_blank"
    >stages</a
  >
  3 and 4, and is usually before the spec is officially published.
</p>
<p>
  Do not confuse JavaScript with the
  <a
    href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(programming_language)"
    class="external"
    target="_blank"
    >Java programming language</a
  >
  — <strong>JavaScript is <em>not</em> "Interpreted Java"</strong>. Both "Java"
  and "JavaScript" are trademarks or registered trademarks of Oracle in the U.S.
  and other countries. However, the two programming languages have very
  different syntax, semantics, and use.
</p>
<p>
  JavaScript documentation of core language features (pure
  <a
    href="/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/JavaScript_technologies_overview"
    >ECMAScript</a
  >, for the most part) includes the following:
</p>

CSS

We start by setting {{cssxref("column-width")}} on the {{htmlelement("body")}} element to define the preferred width for the columns. A {{cssxref("gap")}} of 3em 2em results in a 3em gap between rows and a 2em gap between columns. The {{cssxref("column-rule")}} adds a line in the center of the gap between the columns. The column-height of 95vh makes the columns nearly as tall as the viewport.

We explicitly set {{cssxref("column-wrap")}} to wrap as a reminder of the applied wrapping behavior. We could have set the value to auto or omitted the property altogether, as, by default, column-wrap resolves to wrap when the column-height is set to a <length> value.

css
body {
  column-width: 150px;
  column-rule: 2px solid red;
  gap: 3em 2em;
  padding: 0 2em;
  column-height: 95vh;
  column-wrap: wrap;
}

Next, we set the <h1> element's {{cssxref("column-span")}} property to all, to make the heading span across all the columns, and set the {{cssxref("margin-top")}} property of the first {{htmlelement("p")}} to 0 so that it lines up with the top of the columns.

css
h1 {
  column-span: all;
}

p:first-of-type {
  margin-top: 0;
}

Finally, we add scroll snapping by setting {{cssxref("scroll-snap-type")}} to y mandatory on the {{htmlelement("html")}} element, and {{cssxref("scroll-snap-align")}} to start on the {{cssxref("::column")}} pseudo-elements that represent each generated column. This causes the content to snap to the top of a new column each time it is scrolled.

css
html {
  scroll-snap-type: y mandatory;
}

::column {
  scroll-snap-align: start;
}
css
* {
  box-sizing: border-box;
}

html {
  font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}

p {
  line-height: 1.5;
}

@supports not (column-height: 15em) {
  body::before {
    content: "Your browser does not support the 'column-height' property.";
    background-color: wheat;
    position: fixed;
    inset: 40% 0;
    height: fit-content;
    text-align: center;
    padding: 1rem 0;
  }
}

Result

{{EmbedLiveSample("scroll-snapped", "100%", "400")}}

Try scrolling the content. Note how each new row of columns fills the viewport, and how the content snaps neatly to the top of a new row with each scroll.

column-height and column-count playground

This example builds upon the previous one by including two range sliders that allow you to adjust the multiple-column layout's column count and column height.

HTML and JavaScript

The HTML is the same as the previous example, with the addition of a form containing two <input="range"> elements that update the column-count and column-height values via JavaScript. The HTML and JavaScript are hidden for brevity.

html
<form>
  <div>
    <label for="columns">
      <code>column-count <output id="columns-output">3</output></code>
    </label>
    <input type="range" min="3" max="6" value="3" id="columns" />
  </div>
  <div>
    <label for="column-height">
      <code>column-height <output id="column-height-output">20em</output></code>
    </label>
    <input type="range" min="10" max="30" value="20" id="column-height" />
  </div>
</form>
js
const columnsRange = document.getElementById("columns");
const columnsOutput = document.getElementById("columns-output");
const columnHeightRange = document.getElementById("column-height");
const columnHeightOutput = document.getElementById("column-height-output");

columnsRange.addEventListener("input", () => {
  document.body.style.columnCount = columnsRange.value;
  columnsOutput.textContent = columnsRange.value;
});

columnHeightRange.addEventListener("input", () => {
  document.body.style.columnHeight = `${columnHeightRange.value}em`;
  columnHeightOutput.textContent = `${columnHeightRange.value}em`;
});

CSS

We specify the {{cssxref("column-rule")}} and {{cssxref("gap")}} with the same values as the previous example. We don't specify a column-width; instead, we create a multi-column layout using the {{cssxref("column-count")}} property, interactively setting the number of columns and the height of the column rows using JavaScript. Scroll snapping is not included in this example.

css
body {
  column-count: 3;
  column-height: 20em;
  column-rule: 2px solid red;
  gap: 3em 2em;
  padding: 0 2em;
}
css
form {
  border: 1px solid black;
  background-color: white;
  padding: 10px;
  position: fixed;
  bottom: 1px;
  right: 1px;
}

form div {
  display: flex;
  gap: 1em;
  align-items: center;
  justify-content: space-between;
}

Result

{{EmbedLiveSample("column-playground", "100%", "400")}}

Adjust the number of columns and the column height to see the effect of these properties.

Specifications

{{Specifications}}

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}}

See also

  • {{cssxref("column-count")}}
  • {{cssxref("column-width")}}
  • {{cssxref("columns")}} shorthand
  • {{Cssxref("column-wrap")}}
  • CSS multi-column layout module