`column-fill` CSS property

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-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

/* 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 value	balance
Applies to	multicol elements
Inherited	no
Computed value	as specified
Animation type	discrete

Formal syntax

column-fill = 
  auto |
  balance

Examples

Balancing column content

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

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

Specification
CSS Multi-column Layout Module Level 1 # cf

Browser compatibility

	Desktop					Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Opera	Safari	Chrome Android	Firefox for Android	Opera Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet	WebView Android	WebView on iOS
`column-fill`	50	12	52 17–74	37	9 8	50	52 17–79	37	9 8	5.0	50	9 8
`auto`	50	12	17	37	8	50	17	37	8	5.0	50	8
`balance`	50	12	17	37	8	50	17	37	8	5.0	50	8

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.