View source for Help:Columns

{{Wikipedia how-to|H:COL}}
{{Short description|How to create columns in an article}}
== colbegin and colend ==
To create columns in an article one may use {{tl|colbegin}} and {{tl|colend}}. Note that this is not supported by Internet Explorer version 9 and below or Opera version 11 and below — see {{tl|Div col}} for details. To illustrate the use of these templates, this example uses the {{tl|lorem}} template to generate ''[[Lorem ipsum]]'' placeholder text.

<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">
{{colbegin}}
{{lorem}}
{{lorem}}
{{colend}}
</syntaxhighlight>

produces:

{{colbegin}}
{{lorem}}
{{lorem}}
{{colend}}


You can also use {{tl|col-begin}}, {{tl|col-break}}, and {{tl|col-end}}. But don't use this variety to set numbered or bulleted [[Help:List|lists]] in columns, because {{tl|col-break}} breaks the list up, which is a problem for [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility|accessibility]].

As such:

<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">
{{col-begin}}
{{col-break}}
{{lorem}}
{{col-break}}
{{lorem}}
{{col-break}}
{{lorem}}
{{col-end}}
</syntaxhighlight>

creates

{{col-begin}}
{{col-break}}
{{lorem}}
{{col-break}}
{{lorem}}
{{col-break}}
{{lorem}}
{{col-end}}

== CSS ==
[[MediaWiki:Common.css]] defines the following styles:
* "div.columns-2", "div.columns-3", "div.columns-4" and "div.columns-5" which need to contain a "div.column"

== Templates ==
* {{tl|colbegin}} and {{tl|divbegin}} – utilizes CSS3 features
* {{tl|Columns-start}} – defines CSS classes (see above)
* {{tl|col-begin}} – uses an HTML table (also adds a MULTICOL attribute)
* {{tl|col-begin-small}}
* {{tl|div col}} – uses CSS3
* {{tl|columns-list}} – uses CSS3

== CSS3 multicolumn support ==
{{Further|Template:Reflist#Browser support for columns}}
{{CSS3 multiple column layout}}<!--Please add data for Microsoft Edge.-->
The templates {{tl|div col}} and {{tl|divbegin}} use a feature in [[CSS3]] that is implemented in:
* [[Gecko (software)|Gecko]]-based browsers, such as [[Firefox]] 1.5
* [[Presto (browser engine)|Presto]]-based browsers, such as [[Opera (web browser)|Opera]] 11.1
* [[WebKit]]-based browsers, such as [[Safari (web browser)]] 3 and [[Google Chrome]] 1
* [[MSHTML]]-based browsers, such as [[Internet Explorer]] 10

== See also ==
* [[Help:Tables]]
* [[m:wiki markup tables]]
* [[Template:Columns-list]]

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