column-width

The column-width CSS property specifies the minimum column width. The number of columns will be the maximum number of columns that can fit without any column having a width less than the column-width value. The actual column width may be smaller than the value of column-width if the width of the container is smaller.

/* Keyword value */
column-width: auto;
/* Different <length> values */
column-width: 6px;
column-width: 25em;
column-width: 0.3vw;
/* Global values */
column-width: inherit;
column-width: initial;
column-width: unset;

This allows you to achieve scalable designs that fit different screen sizes. Especially in presence of the column-count CSS property which has precedence, to set an exact column width, all length values must be specified. In horizontal text these are width, column-width, column-gap, and column-rule-width.

Syntax

Values

<length>

Is a <length> value giving a hint of the optimal width of the column. The actual column width may be wider (to fill the available space), or narrower (only if the available space is smaller than the specified column width). The length must be strictly positive or the declaration is invalid.

auto

Is a keyword indicating that the width of the column should be determined by other CSS properties, like column-count.

Formal syntax

<length> | auto

Examples

HTML Content

<div class="content-box">
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
</div>

CSS Content

.content-box {
  border: 10px solid #0ff;
  /* Chrome, Safari, Opera prefix */
  -webkit-column-width: 100px;
  /* Mozilla Firefox prefix */
  -moz-column-width: 100px;
  column-width: 100px;
}

Specifications

Browser compatibility

[1]  Unprefixed as of Chrome 50.

[2] Unprefixed as of Gecko 52, with prefixed aliases still available.