Split table into css columns, issue in Firefox

Question

I have a table which should be divided into two columns (layout columns, not table columns).

Works fine in all major browsers, except Firefox, which doesn't break the table into two columns.

.column-layout {
  columns: 2;
}

<div class="column-layout">
  <table>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
  </table>
</div>

You can "run the snippet" in Chrome to see how it should look like. Firefox renders the table in a single row.

The reason for this: There are some long tables, which should be divided into a two column layout in printview.

Is there a workaround to learn Firefox how to break tables into multiple columns?

Answer 1

For firefox, you need also to break the table-layout display but, then it is not a behaving like a table anymore, columns and rows won't match anymore and noway to use rowspan nor colspan.

the easiest is to reset table's element to display:block;. (think about tbody which is generated by the browser even when missing within the HTML code).

.column-layout {
  columns: 2;
}


/* reset table-layout behavior of HTML table to allow here column-layout but loose the table-layout*/

.column-layout table,
.column-layout tbody,/* don't forget me, i'll be there */
.column-layout tr {
  display: block;
}

<div class="column-layout">
  <table>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Hello</td>
      <td>World</td>
    </tr>
  </table>
</div>

pen to play with