CSS column-fill

<!doctype html>
<title>Example</title>
<style>
.multicol {
  background-color: beige;
  padding: 10px;

  /* Safari and Chrome */
  -webkit-column-count: 3;
  -webkit-column-rule: 2px dotted coral;
  -webkit-column-fill: balance;

  /* Firefox */
  -moz-column-count: 3; 
  -moz-column-rule: 2px dotted coral;
  -moz-column-fill: balance;

  /* CSS3 */
  column-count: 3; 
  column-rule: 2px dotted coral;
  column-fill: balance;
}
</style>
<h3>Column-fill Example</h3>
<div class="multicol">
  <p>The CSS column-fill property allows you to balance content equally between columns on a multi-column layout.</p>
  <p>At the time of writing, browser support for this property was limted/non-existent. Therefore, this example may not display as expected.</p>
</div>

The CSS column-fill property allows you to balance content equally between columns on a multi-column layout.

Syntax

Possible Values

auto: Specifies that columns should be filled sequentially.
balance: Determines that content should be balanced between the columns, if possible.

In addition, all CSS properties also accept the following CSS-wide keyword values as the sole component of their property value:

initial: Represents the value specified as the property's initial value.
inherit: Represents the computed value of the property on the element's parent.
unset: This value acts as either inherit or initial, depending on whether the property is inherited or not. In other words, it sets all properties to their parent value if they are inheritable or to their initial value if not inheritable.

Basic Property Information

Initial Value

balance

Applies To

multicol elements

Inherited?

Media

The W3C specification states the following regarding the column-fill property:

In continuous media, this property will only be consulted if the length of columns has been constrained. Otherwise, columns will automatically be balanced.

In continous media, this property does not have any effect in overflow columns.

In paged media, this property will only have effect on the last page the multicol element appears on.

Example Code

Basic CSS

Working Example within an HTML Document

Try it

This example uses vendor prefixes for the multi-column layout due to lack of browser support for the official standard at the time of writing.

CSS Specifications

The column-fill property is defined in CSS Multi-column Layout Module (W3C Candidate Recommendation 12 April 2011).

Browser Support

The following table provided by Caniuse.com shows the level of browser support for this feature.

Vendor Prefixes

For maximum browser compatibility many web developers add browser-specific properties by using extensions such as -webkit- for Safari, Google Chrome, and Opera (newer versions), -ms- for Internet Explorer, -moz- for Firefox, -o- for older versions of Opera etc. As with any CSS property, if a browser doesn't support a proprietary extension, it will simply ignore it.

This practice is not recommended by the W3C, however in many cases, the only way you can test a property is to include the CSS extension that is compatible with your browser.

The major browser manufacturers generally strive to adhere to the W3C specifications, and when they support a non-prefixed property, they typically remove the prefixed version. Also, W3C advises vendors to remove their prefixes for properties that reach Candidate Recommendation status.

Many developers use Autoprefixer, which is a postprocessor for CSS. Autoprefixer automatically adds vendor prefixes to your CSS so that you don't need to. It also removes old, unnecessary prefixes from your CSS.

You can also use Autoprefixer with preprocessors such as Less and Sass.