column-fill CSS property

The column-fill CSS property controls how an element's contents are balanced when broken into columns.

Try it

column-fill: auto;
column-fill: balance;
<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.
  </p>
</section>
#example-element {
  width: 100%;
  height: 90%;
  columns: 3;
  text-align: left;
}

Syntax

css
/* Keyword values */
column-fill: auto;
column-fill: balance;

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

Values

This property is specified as one of the following keyword values:

auto

Columns are filled sequentially. Content takes up only the room it needs, possibly resulting in some columns remaining empty.

balance

Content is equally divided between columns. In fragmented contexts, such as paged media, only the last fragment is balanced. Therefore in paged media, only the last page would be balanced. This is the default value.

The specification defines a balance-all value, in which content is equally divided between columns in fragmented contexts, such as paged media. This value is not yet supported in any browser.

Formal definition

Initial valuebalance
Applies tomulticol elements
Inheritedno
Computed valueas specified
Animation typediscrete

Formal syntax

column-fill = 
  auto         |
  balance      |
  balance-all

Examples

undefined

Balancing column content

HTML

html
<p class="fill-auto">
  This paragraph fills columns one at a time. Since all of the text can fit in
  the first column, the others are empty.
</p>

<p class="fill-balance">
  This paragraph attempts to balance the amount of content in each column.
</p>

CSS

css
p {
  height: 7em;
  background: #ffff99;
  columns: 3;
  column-rule: 1px solid;
}

p.fill-auto {
  column-fill: auto;
}

p.fill-balance {
  column-fill: balance;
}

Result

Specifications

Warning: There are some interoperability issues and bugs with column-fill across browsers, due to unresolved issues in the specification.

In particular, when using column-fill: auto to fill columns sequentially, Chrome will only consult this property if the multicol container has a size in the block dimension (e.g., height in a horizontal writing mode). Firefox will always consult this property, therefore filling the first column with all of the content in cases where there is no size.

See also