Bootstrap 3 two columns full height

Edit:
In Bootstrap 4, native classes can produce full-height columns (DEMO) because they changed their grid system to flexbox. (Read on for Bootstrap 3)

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The native Bootstrap 3.0 classes don’t support the layout that you describe, however, we can integrate some custom CSS which make use of css tables to achieve this.

Bootply demo / Codepen

Markup:

<header>Header</header>
<div class="container">
    <div class="row">
        <div class="col-md-3 no-float">Navigation</div>
        <div class="col-md-9 no-float">Content</div>
    </div>
</div>

(Relevant) CSS

html,body,.container {
    height:100%;
}
.container {
    display:table;
    width: 100%;
    margin-top: -50px;
    padding: 50px 0 0 0; /*set left/right padding according to needs*/
    box-sizing: border-box;
}

.row {
    height: 100%;
    display: table-row;
}

.row .no-float {
  display: table-cell;
  float: none;
}

The above code will achieve full-height columns (due to the custom css-table properties which we added) and with ratio 1:3 (Navigation:Content) for medium screen widths and above – (due to bootstrap’s default classes: col-md-3 and col-md-9)

NB:

1) In order not to mess up bootstrap’s native column classes we add another class like no-float in the markup and only set display:table-cell and float:none on this class (as apposed to the column classes themselves).

2) If we only want to use the css-table code for a specific break-point (say medium screen widths and above) but for mobile screens we want to default back to the usual bootstrap behavior than we can wrap our custom CSS within a media query, say:

@media (min-width: 992px) {
  .row .no-float {
      display: table-cell;
      float: none;
  }
}

Codepen demo

Now, for smaller screens, the columns will behave like default bootstrap columns (each getting full width).

3) If the 1:3 ratio is necessary for all screen widths – then it’s probably a better to remove bootstrap’s col-md-* classes from the markup because that’s not how they are meant to be used.

Codepen demo