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Help:Columns

This help page is a how-to guide. It details processes or procedures of some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms and practices. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting.

Shortcut H:COL

How to create columns in an article

To create columns in an article one may use {{colbegin}} and {{colend}}. Note that this is not supported by Internet Explorer version 9 and below or Opera version 11 and below — see {{Div col}} for details. This example uses {{lorem}} to generate placeholder text.

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

produces:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

You can also use {{col-begin}}, {{col-break}}, and {{col-end}}. But don't use this variety to set numbered or bulleted lists in columns, because {{col-break}} breaks the list up, which is a problem for accessibility.

As such:

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

creates

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"

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

The templates {{div col}} and {{divbegin}} use a feature in CSS3 that is implemented in:

• Gecko-based browsers, such as Firefox 1.5
• Presto-based browsers, such as Opera 11.1
• WebKit-based browsers, such as Safari (web browser) 3 and Google Chrome1
• MSHTML-based browsers, such as Internet Explorer10

• Help:Tables
• m:wiki markup tables
• Template:Columns-list