Adjusting Three Column Margins in Layout

In the earlier related post, your faithful servant showed you how to turn your free two column Minima Blogger template into a three column Minima template. After you get your three columns all set up, you'll probably want to adjust your margins. Your blog will be fine without this step, but you'll probably notice that your columns appear "squished" in together. Have no fear, it's easy to fix, and once you learn how you can customize your blog's look to almost any desire.

This post is for adjusting margins in "Layout Version". If you forgot which version you're using, just go into your dashboard and look to the left of the "View Blog" link. If the tab there says "Layout", you are using the Layout version of Minima and this post is for you. If it says "Template" there instead, then you are using the "Classic" Template version of Minima and those instructions are here.

Like the instructions for adding columns, these instructions are also simple and easy, and you can do it if you don't know the first thing about HTML.

In the Three Column Blogs tutorial on adding a column to Minima in Layout, you made room for the new column by increasing the width of the page to 940 pixels.

Consequently, when you adjust your margins, the width of the sidebars, the main post column and all the margins must collectively add up to 940. If they exceed 940, one of your columns will drop to the bottom of the page. If they are less than 940, you will still see all three columns but the layout will be asymmetrical. So get out your calculator and let's begin!

First, open up Blogger and go into your Dashboard, then click on the "Layout" tab. Then go into the "Edit HTML" tab. Next, scroll down (or use CTRL+F) to where it says:

/* Outer-Wrapper
----------------------------------------------- */

Now, you are going to paste some code in to add margins to your new columns. It's helpful here to remember the "ctrl c" trick to copy and "ctrl v" to paste - it's much faster and easier. The code you are going to paste in will be the exact same every time. It is:

margin right:
margin left:

First, we will add margins to the "left-sidebar-wrapper". To do that, paste the following code in between the sidebar's "width" and "float" designations:

margin-right: 10px;
margin-left: 5px;

Next, we will move to the "main-wrapper". Paste the following code in between the main-content's "width" and "float" designations:

margin-right: 15px;
margin-left: 15px;

Then, we'll do the same thing for the right sidebar wrapper, which is identified in the code as the "sidebar-wrapper". Paste the following code in between the right sidebar's "width" and "float" designations:

margin-right: 5px;
margin-left: 10px;

Now for the math. These margins added 70 pixels to the main page, so we'll need to reduce the width of the columns by a collective 70 pixels. In this example, I have chosen to reduce the width of the two sidebars, but you can also reduce the main post width alone, or all columns together. This is what you need to do in order to reduce the sidebar widths:

#left-sidebar-wrapper {
width: 220px;<-------change to 185
margin-right: 10px;
margin-left: 5px;
float: $startSide;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}

#sidebar-wrapper {
width: 220px;<-------change to 185
margin-right: 5px;
margin-left: 10px;
float: $endSide;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}

Your finished block of code with the new margins should now look like this:

#left-sidebar-wrapper {
width: 185px;
margin-right: 10px;
margin-left: 5px;
float: $startSide;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}

#main-wrapper {
width: 500px;
margin-right: 15px;
margin-left: 15px;
float: $startSide;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}

#sidebar-wrapper {
width: 185px;
margin-right: 5px;
margin-left: 10px;
float: $endSide;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}

Hit "preview" to see your new three column blogger layout with margins, and then save the template if everything is ok. And now you really are a now master minima coder! Not only are you completely done, but you are also armed with enough knowledge to increase the width of your columns and main page in order to fit custom widgets and other "non-google" add-ins.

Update: There are a lot of comments below about not enough space between columns, too much space, etc. These are personal preferences and they can easily be met - the great thing about the Blogger templates is that you can customize them to your heart's desire. Experiment! Just fiddle with the margin settings until your blog looks the way you want - it's easy. More pixels in your margins=more space between columns, less pixels in your margins=less space. Be careful not to add too much though, or your right column will drop to the bottom of the page.

Also, several people made comments about images/widgets/photos getting cut off in their sidebars - again, you need to either reduce the size of the image/widget/photo to fit in your sidebar, or increase the width of the sidebar to accommodate the size of the widget. But be careful: if you make it too wide,your right column will drop to the bottom of the page.

Best of luck with your blogging. I hope this article on adding margins to your three column template did great things for your blog! If this post was helpful, please link to it! Cheers.