Web Matters

CSS Layout Example 2

This page was inspired by a comment in the comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html Usenet group, that:

1 fixed 2 (percent) fluid layout is impossible in CSS. The perfect, and perhaps ironic, example is mozilla.org's layout. You cannot have a fixed menu with 2 equal spaced columns taking the rest of the space. It is impossible.

This page proves that not only this layout is perfectly possible but, even better, in really small windows (e.g. PDA's) the two fluid columns will float under one another. It also throws in a header and footer for good measure. It has been tested in Opera 6+, Firefox, Chrome and IE 6+, all on Windows. It doesn't work in IE 5, but I suspect few people are going to worry about that any more. (It also didn't originally work in IE 7, which seems to have introduced a new bug, but I found a work-around for it.)


This column fills half the remaining width. You can see from the line breaks that it is the same width as the other column.

Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?

This column fills half the remaining width. You can see from the line breaks that it is the same width as the other column.

Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?