Re: [csswg-drafts] [css-multicol-2] Is column-height bigger than height useful? (#12794)

The situation isn't the same for `column-height` as it is for `column-width`. A multicol container wants to take up all of its available width. The used column width will be adjusted (increased) so that the columns together take up all the available width, rather than leaving some unused space at the beginning, end, or ... hmm, both sides, so that columns get centered? Maybe if it had been invented today, we'd have an option of leaving `column-width` as-is, and then use alignment properties to specify what to do with extraneous space (where `stretch` (the current behavior, if you will) could be one option, of course).

This is not the case for `column-height`. If you want room for one and a half row, you can do that. Or, if you don't want to make room for the row gap, that's fine too (which will make the distance from the beginning of one row to the beginning of the next larger than the height of the multicol container).

```html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<style>
  .mc {
    overflow: auto;
    columns: 3 / 100px;
    height: 100px;
    column-fill: auto;
    background: yellow;
  }
</style>
<div class="mc">
  <div style="height:500px; background:cyan;">Hello,<br>world</div>
</div>
```

Scrolled a few pixels down:

<img width="559" height="110" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/0236ba5a-e26f-4a93-98d9-6692384fa50e" />

There is no nested fragmentation going on for row wrapping, so borrowing ideas from paginated multicol doesn't make sense to me.

I don't think it's a good idea to impose such a restriction in the spec. It's just more words to prevent something that might be a use case for someone, for all we know.

@rachelandrew 

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Received on Monday, 15 September 2025 07:56:32 UTC