MDN

Syntax

css

/* Keywords */
column-wrap: auto;
column-wrap: nowrap;
column-wrap: wrap;

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

Values

auto: The initial value. If the content container's column-height is set to a <length>, auto resolves to wrap, otherwise it resolves to nowrap.
nowrap: Columns overflow in the inline direction.
wrap: Overflow columns are placed in a new row in the block direction.

The column-wrap property can be used to set the columns of a CSS multi-column layout to wrap onto a new row when they start to overflow the column width. This is useful for creating more readable layouts when using the column-count or column-width property to set multiple columns.

Without column-wrap, excess columns will overflow to the side, and readers will have to scroll in the inline direction to read all the content. The column-height property, along with column-wrap, allows you to set a specific height for the columns and wrap them onto a new row of columns when the container edge is reached.

The default value of column-wrap is auto, which resolves to wrap when column-height is set to a <length> value; wrap allows the fixed-height columns to wrap onto multiple rows. When column-height is equal to auto, column-wrap: auto resolves to nowrap, allowing the columns to overflow horizontally if a fixed container height is set.

As a result of this default behavior, generally you don't need to explicitly set the column-wrap property.

Formal definition

Initial value	`auto`
Applies to	multicol elements
Inherited	no
Computed value	as specified
Animation type	discrete

Formal syntax

column-wrap = 
  auto    |
  nowrap  |
  wrap

Examples

Basic usage

This example demonstrates basic usage of the column-wrap property to create a wrapped multi-col layout via setting a column-height property.

HTML

We include a poem by Dr. Seuss using an <ol> containing 28 <li>s, followed by the author's name in a <p>.

html

<ol>
  <li>One fish</li>
  <li>Two fish</li>
  <li>Red fish</li>
  <li>Blue fish</li>
  ...
</ol>
<p>-- Dr. Seuss</p>

<ol>
  <li>One fish</li>
  <li>Two fish</li>
  <li>Red fish</li>
  <li>Blue fish</li>
  <li>Black fish</li>
  <li>Blue fish</li>
  <li>Old fish</li>
  <li>New fish.</li>
  <li>This one has a little star.</li>
  <li>This one has a little car.</li>
  <li>Say! What a lot</li>
  <li>Of fish there are.</li>
  <li>Yes. Some are red. And some are blue.</li>
  <li>Some are old. And some are new.</li>
  <li>Some are sad.</li>
  <li>And some are glad.</li>
  <li>And some are very, very bad.</li>
  <li>Why are they</li>
  <li>Sad and glad and bad?</li>
  <li>I do not know.</li>
  <li>Go ask your dad.</li>
  <li>Some are thin.</li>
  <li>And some are fat.</li>
  <li>The fat one has</li>
  <li>A yellow hat.</li>
  <li>From there to here, from here to there,</li>
  <li>Funny things</li>
  <li>Are everywhere.</li>
</ol>
<p>--Dr. Seuss</p>

CSS

We define the <ol> to be a multi-column container by setting the column-width property to 150px, meaning the container will contain as many columns as possible with each being at least 150px wide. The gap property sets a horizontal gap between columns and a vertical gap between rows of columns. We then set the column-height to 3em, causing the column-wrap property's default auto value to resolve to wrap to create wrapped rows of columns.

css

ol {
  column-width: 150px;
  gap: 2em;
  column-height: 3em;
}

Result

Comparing `wrap` and `nowrap`

This example features a multi-column layout that demonstrates the difference between the wrap and nowrap values by allowing you to toggle the column container's column-wrap value between the two. The result is a layout that dynamically changes between horizontal and vertical scrolling.

HTML and JavaScript

The markup for this example contains multiple paragraphs of content, taken from MDN's HTML, CSS, and JavaScript home pages, and a JavaScript-powered <input type="checkbox"> element to toggle the container's column-wrap property value between nowrap and wrap. The HTML and JavaScript have been hidden for brevity.

<form>
  <label for="set-wrap"
    >Set <code>column-wrap</code> to <code>wrap</code></label
  >
  <input type="checkbox" id="set-wrap" />
</form>
<h1>HTML, CSS, and JavaScript summaries</h1>
<p>
  <strong>HTML</strong> (HyperText Markup Language) is the most basic building
  block of the Web. It defines the meaning and structure of web content. Other
  technologies besides HTML are generally used to describe a web page's
  appearance (CSS) or behavior (JavaScript).
</p>
<p>
  "Hypertext" refers to links that connect web pages to one another, either
  within a single website or between websites. Links are a fundamental aspect of
  the Web. By uploading content to the Internet and linking it to pages created
  by other people, you become an active participant in the World Wide Web.
</p>
<p>
  HTML uses "markup" to annotate text, images, and other content for display in
  a Web browser. HTML markup includes special "elements" such as
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/head"
    ><code>&lt;head&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/title"
    ><code>&lt;title&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/body"
    ><code>&lt;body&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/header"
    ><code>&lt;header&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/footer"
    ><code>&lt;footer&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/article"
    ><code>&lt;article&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/section"
    ><code>&lt;section&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/p"><code>&lt;p&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/div"
    ><code>&lt;div&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/span"
    ><code>&lt;span&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/img"
    ><code>&lt;img&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/aside"
    ><code>&lt;aside&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/audio"
    ><code>&lt;audio&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/canvas"
    ><code>&lt;canvas&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/datalist"
    ><code>&lt;datalist&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/details"
    ><code>&lt;details&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/embed"
    ><code>&lt;embed&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/nav"
    ><code>&lt;nav&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/search"
    ><code>&lt;search&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/output"
    ><code>&lt;output&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/progress"
    ><code>&lt;progress&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/video"
    ><code>&lt;video&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/ul"
    ><code>&lt;ul&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/ol"
    ><code>&lt;ol&gt;</code></a
  >,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/li"
    ><code>&lt;li&gt;</code></a
  >
  and many others.
</p>
<p>
  An HTML element is set off from other text in a document by "tags", which
  consist of the element name surrounded by <code>&lt;</code> and
  <code>&gt;</code>. The name of an element inside a tag is case-insensitive.
  That is, it can be written in uppercase, lowercase, or a mixture. For example,
  the <code>&lt;title&gt;</code> tag can be written as
  <code>&lt;Title&gt;</code>, <code>&lt;TITLE&gt;</code>, or in any other way.
  However, the convention and recommended practice is to write tags in
  lowercase.
</p>

<hr />

<p>
  <strong>Cascading Style Sheets</strong> (<strong>CSS</strong>) is a
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/API/StyleSheet">stylesheet</a> language used to
  describe the presentation of a document written in
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML">HTML</a> or
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/XML/Guides/XML_introduction">XML</a> (including XML
  dialects such as <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/SVG">SVG</a>,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/MathML">MathML</a> or
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/XHTML">XHTML</a>). CSS describes how elements
  should be rendered on screen, on paper, in speech, or on other media.
</p>
<p>
  CSS is among the core languages of the <strong>open web</strong> and is
  standardized across web browsers according to
  <a href="https://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/#specs" class="external" target="_blank"
    >W3C specifications</a
  >. Previously, the development of various parts of CSS specification was done
  synchronously, which allowed the versioning of the latest recommendations. You
  might have heard about CSS1, CSS2.1, or even CSS3. There will never be a CSS3
  or a CSS4; rather, everything is now just "CSS" with individual CSS modules
  having version numbers.
</p>
<p>
  After CSS 2.1, the scope of the specification increased significantly and the
  progress on different CSS modules started to differ so much, that it became
  more effective to
  <a
    href="https://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/current-work"
    class="external"
    target="_blank"
    >develop and release recommendations separately per module</a
  >. Instead of versioning the CSS specification, W3C now periodically takes a
  snapshot of
  <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/css/" class="external" target="_blank"
    >the latest stable state of the CSS specification</a
  >
  and individual modules progress. CSS modules now have version numbers, or
  levels, such as
  <a
    href="https://drafts.csswg.org/css-color-5/"
    class="external"
    target="_blank"
    >CSS Color Module Level 5</a
  >.
</p>

<hr />

<p>
  <strong>JavaScript</strong> (<strong>JS</strong>) is a lightweight interpreted
  (or
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/Just_In_Time_Compilation"
    >just-in-time compiled</a
  >) programming language with
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/First-class_Function">first-class functions</a>.
  While it is most well-known as the scripting language for Web pages,
  <a
    href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript#Other_usage"
    class="external"
    target="_blank"
    >many non-browser environments</a
  >
  also use it, such as <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/Node.js">Node.js</a>,
  <a href="https://couchdb.apache.org/" class="external" target="_blank"
    >Apache CouchDB</a
  >
  and
  <a
    href="https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/acrobatsdk/"
    class="external"
    target="_blank"
    >Adobe Acrobat</a
  >. JavaScript is a
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/Prototype-based_programming">prototype-based</a
  >, <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/Garbage_collection">garbage-collected</a>,
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/Dynamic_typing">dynamic</a> language, supporting
  multiple paradigms such as imperative, functional, and object-oriented.
</p>
<p>
  JavaScript's dynamic capabilities include runtime object construction,
  variable parameter lists, function variables, dynamic script creation (via
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/eval"
    ><code>eval</code></a
  >), object introspection (via
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Statements/for...in"
    ><code>for...in</code></a
  >
  and
  <a
    href="/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Object#static_methods"
    ><code>Object</code> utilities</a
  >), and source-code recovery (JavaScript functions store their source text and
  can be retrieved through
  <a
    href="/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Function/toString"
    ><code>toString()</code></a
  >).
</p>
<p>
  This section is dedicated to the JavaScript language itself, and not the parts
  that are specific to Web pages or other host environments. For information
  about <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/API">APIs</a> that are specific to Web
  pages, please see <a href="/en-US/docs/Web/API">Web APIs</a> and
  <a href="/en-US/docs/Glossary/DOM">DOM</a>.
</p>
<p>
  The standards for JavaScript are the
  <a href="https://tc39.es/ecma262/" class="external" target="_blank"
    >ECMAScript Language Specification</a
  >
  (ECMA-262) and the
  <a href="https://tc39.es/ecma402/" class="external" target="_blank"
    >ECMAScript Internationalization API specification</a
  >
  (ECMA-402). As soon as one browser implements a feature, we try to document
  it. This means that cases where some
  <a href="https://github.com/tc39/proposals" class="external" target="_blank"
    >proposals for new ECMAScript features</a
  >
  have already been implemented in browsers, documentation and examples in MDN
  articles may use some of those new features. Most of the time, this happens
  between the
  <a href="https://tc39.es/process-document/" class="external" target="_blank"
    >stages</a
  >
  3 and 4, and is usually before the spec is officially published.
</p>
<p>
  Do not confuse JavaScript with the
  <a
    href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(programming_language)"
    class="external"
    target="_blank"
    >Java programming language</a
  >
  — <strong>JavaScript is <em>not</em> "Interpreted Java"</strong>. Both "Java"
  and "JavaScript" are trademarks or registered trademarks of Oracle in the U.S.
  and other countries. However, the two programming languages have very
  different syntax, semantics, and use.
</p>
<p>
  JavaScript documentation of core language features (pure
  <a
    href="/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/JavaScript_technologies_overview"
    >ECMAScript</a
  >, for the most part) includes the following:
</p>

const checkbox = document.getElementById("set-wrap");
checkbox.addEventListener("change", () => {
  if (checkbox.checked) {
    document.body.style.columnWrap = "wrap";
  } else {
    document.body.style.columnWrap = "nowrap";
  }
});

CSS

We make the <body> element a multi-col container by setting the column-count to 3. We then set a gap of 3em 2em, resulting in a 3em gap between rows and a 2em gap between columns.

We then set a column-height of 90vh, making the columns nearly as tall as the viewport. We also set column-wrap to nowrap, causing excess content columns to overflow horizontally. This is required because the initial column-wrap value is auto, which resolves to wrap when column-height is set to a <length> value.

The checkbox toggles the column-wrap property between nowrap and wrap. When set to wrap, the excess content columns overflow vertically into new rows of columns, creating the vertical layout. The column-height value causes each row of columns to fill the viewport.

css

body {
  column-count: 3;
  gap: 3em 2em;
  padding: 0 2em;
  column-height: 90vh;
  column-wrap: nowrap;
}

Next, we set the <h1> element's column-span property to all, to make the heading span across all the columns, and set the margin-top property of the first <p> to 0 so that it lines up with the top of the columns.

css

h1 {
  column-span: all;
}

p:first-of-type {
  margin-top: 0;
}

* {
  box-sizing: border-box;
}

html {
  font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}

p {
  line-height: 1.5;
}

@supports not (column-wrap: wrap) {
  body::before {
    content: "Your browser does not support the 'column-wrap' property.";
    background-color: wheat;
    position: fixed;
    inset: 40% 0;
    height: fit-content;
    text-align: center;
    padding: 1rem 0;
  }
}

form {
  position: fixed;
  top: 0;
  right: 0;
  background-color: white;
  padding: 5px;
  border: 1px solid black;
}

Result

Toggle the checkbox to change the value of the column-wrap property and switch the layout between horizontal and vertical scrolling. When column-wrap is set to nowrap, the columns overflow horizontally; when column-wrap is set to wrap, new rows of columns are added vertically.

Specifications

Specification
CSS Multi-column Layout Module Level 2 # propdef-column-wrap

Browser compatibility

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column-wrap

Syntax

Values

Description

Formal definition

Formal syntax

Examples

Basic usage

HTML

CSS

Result

Comparing `wrap` and `nowrap`

HTML and JavaScript

CSS

Result

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

Help improve MDN