RandoziText Column Balancer
Paste a list, one item per line, choose the number of columns and how wide a column is in characters. The page spreads the items so the columns end at about the same height, either keeping the reading order or mixing items to balance them as closely as possible, and shows each column with its height.
Height of each column
5 / 5 / 3 lines
Options
Column 1
5 lines
- Home
- About our team and how we work together
- Pricing
- Frequently asked questions
Column 2
5 lines
- Contact
- Careers at the company, open positions and internships
- Blog
- Privacy policy
Column 3
3 lines
- Terms of service and conditions of use
- Help centre
Wrapped lines: each item is cut at spaces to fit the column width; a word longer than the width takes several lines. Keep reading order: consecutive items per column, the tallest column as short as it can be. Balance: tallest item first into the shortest column, a good approximation, not a guaranteed optimum. Up to 2,000 items of 500 characters. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
How it works
- Paste your items, one per line.
- Choose the number of columns and whether to measure in wrapped lines (with a column width) or in characters.
- Choose “keep reading order” for contiguous columns, or “balance as evenly as possible” to allow any item in any column.
- Read the height of each column and the gap between the tallest and the shortest, then copy a column or everything.
What people use it for
Newsletters, menus and price lists
Split a long list into 2 or 3 columns of equal length for a print layout.
Footers and link lists
Divide site links or credits into balanced columns without counting lines by hand.
Sharing out text-heavy items
Distribute notes or captions between people or slides so nobody has far more text than the others.
Questions
- How is the height of an item measured?
- In wrapped lines: the item is cut at spaces so no line is longer than the column width you set, and a single word longer than the width takes several lines. An item of 25 characters in a 30-character column takes 1 line; 45 characters made of short words take 2. In characters mode, the height is simply the character count.
- What does “keep reading order” do?
- Each column holds a run of consecutive items, so reading column 1, then column 2, and so on, gives your list back in its original order. The page finds the smallest possible height for the tallest column with a binary search and a greedy fill, and the result is always the same for the same input.
- What does “balance as evenly as possible” do?
- It sorts the items by height, tallest first, and puts each one into the currently shortest column (the longest-processing-time rule). It usually gets columns very close in height but it is a well-known approximation, not a guaranteed optimum, and it does not keep the order of the list. Items inside a column are shown in their original order.
- What are the limits?
- Up to 2,000 items of 500 characters, 2 to 12 columns and a width of 5 to 200 characters. The width is a count of characters, not a pixel size, so letters of different widths in a real font will not line up exactly. Nothing you type leaves your browser.