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Multiple Columns of Text |
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You may have noticed that newspapers print text in fairly narrow columns. This makes it easier to read under adverse conditions. The oversized paper is usually flopping all over the place. If the lines of text were long you would have trouble moving from the end of one line to the beginning of the next. On the other hand, the lines of text on Web pages tend to get a bit wide. This explains the popularity of the left/right split, with the menu on the left-hand side. The menu helps to limit the width of the text on the right-hand side. (This page is an example of the technique.) Generally, narrower columns mean increased reading speed. Netscape Navigator 3.x provides the <MULTICOL> tag,
which displays text in vertical columns.
COLS=n argument is mandatory, but the
GUTTER=n argument is optional with 10 pixels as the
default spacing between columns. Note also that the effect can be turned
on for only a portion of a page; it need not be in effect for the whole
page. In fact, if the whole page were displayed with multiple columns,
then there would probably be too much scrolling up and down to get to the
top of the next column. To simulate the multiple column effect in other browsers (IE for example), use a table. One of the problems with this approach (besides the increased amount of HTML code) is that you have to manually "balance" the amount of text in each column.
<MULTICOL> tag still has the same space between the
columns, but in the table version the gutters increase because they
are based on a percentage, rather than a fixed pixel width.
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