The CSS 3 column-count attribute creates documents (or parts of documents) with multiple columns. See http://www.quirksmode.org/css/multicolumn.html for examples. Not all browsers support this attribute, and those that do implement it inconsistently.
This filter imitates the effect of the column-count attribute just for lists. It provides consistency and a simple input format: simply put each list item on a separate line. For example, it will format
<multicolumn cols="3" type="ol">
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
</multicolumn>