CSS make columns with different number of text equal

Question

.colomn {
  column-count: 3;
}

<div class="colomn">
  <h1>Page 1</h1>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
  <h1>Page 2</h1>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
  <h1>Page 3</h1>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer
    took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset
    sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
</div>

I want the Page h1s to be at the top of each colomn regardless of how much text is in each of the colomn. And also I don't want any text overlapping into a foreign colomn. Does anyone know how i can do it?

I think you are trying to hard. I'm not sure `column-count` is your best option. You should, ideally, wrap the heading and patagraphs in theiw own divs and using whatever techinique you want to lay out those wrappers. — Paulie_D, Oct 26 '17 at 14:37
Like Paulie_D said, column are useful when you don't know where the paragraph will break. If you know where the column starts, don't use css, simply put the text in 3 divs. — Fla, Oct 26 '17 at 14:39
Related - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8506783/css3-columns-force-non-breaking-splitting-element — Paulie_D, Oct 26 '17 at 14:40

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 26 '17 at 14:38

What you could try is to add a wrapper element to each column and use the property break-inside with avoid value on it ?

.colomn {
  column-count: 3;
}
.colomn > div {
  break-inside: avoid;
}

<div class="colomn">
  <div>
    <h1>Page 1</h1>
    <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
      has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
      publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
  </div>
  <div>
    <h1>Page 2</h1>
    <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
      has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
      publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
  </div>
  <div>
    <h1>Page 3</h1>
    <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
      has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
      publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer
      took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset
      sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
  </div>
</div>

VXp · Answer 2 · 2018-09-24T05:45:18.777

As an alternative, you can do it with the Flexbox:

.parent {
  display: flex; /* displays flex-items (children) inline */
}

.parent > .column {
  text-align: justify;
  margin: 0 10px;
}

<div class="parent">
  <div class="column">
    <h1>Page 1</h1>
    <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
  </div>
  <div class="column">
    <h1>Page 2</h1>
    <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
  </div>
  <div class="column">
    <h1>Page 3</h1>
    <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
  </div>
</div>

David Thomas · Answer 3 · 2017-10-26T16:02:25.003

Unfortunately, and somewhat inexplicably, this answer does not work in Firefox for unknown reasons (I suspect it's intentional, since I'm unable – as yet – to find a listed bug).

If you wish to retain your use of CSS columns to lay out this element, then it's possible to simply style the <h1> elements with the additional rule of:

break-before: column

Which forces a column-break before the <h1> element:

.colomn {
  column-count: 3;
}

h1 {
  break-before: column;
}

<div class="colomn">

  <h1>Page 1</h1>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>

  <h1>Page 2</h1>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>

  <h1>Page 3</h1>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer
    took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset
    sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
</div>

It's worth noting, of course, that this is perhaps not the most flexible approach, since the number of columns must be hard-coded (via the column-count: 3 CSS property and property-value); this can become more flexible if, instead of column-count you instead use column-width:

.colomn {
  column-width: 25vw;
}

h1 {
  break-before: column;
}

<div class="colomn">

  <h1>Page 1</h1>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>

  <h1>Page 2</h1>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>

  <h1>Page 3</h1>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer
    took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset
    sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>

  <h1>Page 4</h1>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>

  <h1>Page 5</h1>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>

  <h1>Page 6</h1>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer
    took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset
    sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
</div>

huhm, that is correct. I guess you could allways 'display: inline-block' the `> div`s.. — Toni Michel Caubet, Oct 26 '17 at 15:52
Tried it on explorer 11 and it bugs out the column. Is there anyway I could make it work just for explorer and chrome? — zhog, Oct 26 '17 at 20:36

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 26 '17 at 14:44

A grid solution is the most elegant as you do not have to change the HTML:

.column {
  display:grid;
  grid-template: "h1 h2 h3" "p1 p2 p3";
}
.column h1:nth-of-type(1) {grid-area:h1;}
.column h1:nth-of-type(2) {grid-area:h2;}
.column h1:nth-of-type(3) {grid-area:h3;}

.column p:nth-of-type(1) {grid-area:p1;}
.column p:nth-of-type(2) {grid-area:p2;}
.column p:nth-of-type(3) {grid-area:p3;}

<div class="column">

  <h1>Page 1</h1>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>

  <h1>Page 2</h1>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>

  <h1>Page 3</h1>
  <p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It
    has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop
    publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer
    took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset
    sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>
</div>

holden · Answer 5 · 2017-10-26T14:57:05.173

I experienced that break rules are not well supported. The best to me is keep the text of the same column into an inline-block stiled <div>

CSS

.colomn {
   -webkit-column-count: 3; 
    -moz-column-count: 3; 
    column-count: 3;
}
.roped {
    display: inline-block;
    width: 100%;
 }

HTML

<div class="colomn">
 <div class="roped">
  <h1>Page 1</h1>
  <p> Text here....</p>
 </div>
  <div class="roped">
  <h1>Page 2</h1>
  <p>Text here...</p>
    </div>
    <div class="roped">
  <h1>Page 3</h1>
  <p>Text here....</p>
 </div>
</div>

I'd always add the specific browser-proprieties:

-webkit-column-count: 3; 
-moz-column-count: 3;

for backward compatibility

http://jsfiddle.net/u047yq6w/1/

Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, [**it would be preferable**](//meta.stackoverflow.com/q/8259) to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference. Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes — Paulie_D, Oct 26 '17 at 14:48

CSS make columns with different number of text equal

5 Answers5