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

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:

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 Chrome 1
• MSHTML-based browsers, such as Internet Explorer 10

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