Setting columns in word

Word 2013

You can format your document in a newspaper-style column layout by adding columns. On the Page Layout tab, click Columns, then click the layout you want.

  1. To apply columns to only part of your document, with your cursor, select the text that you want to format.

  2. On the Page Layout tab, click Columns, then click More Columns.

  3. Click Selected text from the Apply to box.

Word 2016

You can format your document in a newspaper-style column layout by adding columns. On the Layout tab, click Columns, then click the layout you want.

  1. To apply columns to only part of your document, with your cursor, select the text that you want to format.

  2. On the Layout tab, click Columns, then click More Columns.

  3. Click Selected text from the Apply to box.

Need more help?

Источник

  1. Image titled Add Columns in Microsoft Word Step 1

    1

    Open Microsoft Word. Its icon resembles a blue background with a white «W» on top.

    • If you’d rather edit an existing document, simply double-click the document in question.

  2. Image titled Add Columns in Microsoft Word Step 2

    2

    Click Blank document. It’s in the top-left corner of the templates page.

    • If you’re editing an existing document, skip this step.

    Advertisement

  3. Image titled Add Columns in Microsoft Word Step 3

    3

    Click the Layout tab. It’s at the top of the Word window, to the right of the Home, Insert, and Design tabs.

  4. Image titled Add Columns in Microsoft Word Step 4

    4

    Click Columns. This option is below and to the left of the Layout tab. Clicking it will prompt a drop-down menu with the following options:

    • One — Default setting for Word documents.
    • Two — Splits the page into two distinct columns.
    • Three — Splits the page into three distinct columns.
    • Left — Concentrates most of the text on the right side of the document, leaving a narrow column on the left.
    • Right — Concentrates most of the text on the left side of the document, leaving a narrow column on the right.
    • If you highlight a part (or all) of your document before clicking a column option, your document will be reformatted to appear in columns.

  5. Image titled Add Columns in Microsoft Word Step 5

    5

    Click a column option. Doing so will apply invisible columns to your document; as you type, you’ll notice that your text jumps to a new line before reaching the standard right-most margin. Once you reach the bottom of the page, your text will continue in the next column until you reach the bottom of the page again, and so on.

    6. Advertisement

  1. Image titled Add Columns in Microsoft Word Step 6

    1

    Open Microsoft Word. Its icon resembles a blue background with a white «W» on top.

    • If you’d rather edit an existing document, simply double-click the document in question.

  2. Image titled Add Columns in Microsoft Word Step 7

    2

    Click Blank document. It’s in the top-left corner of the templates page.

    • If you’re editing an existing document, skip this step.

  3. Image titled Add Columns in Microsoft Word Step 8

    3

    Click the Layout tab. It’s at the top of the Word window, to the right of the Home, Insert, and Design tabs.

  4. Image titled Add Columns in Microsoft Word Step 9

    4

    Click Columns. You’ll find this option below and to the left of the Layout tab.

  5. Image titled Add Columns in Microsoft Word Step 10

    5

    Click More Columns. It’s at the bottom of the Columns drop-down menu.

  6. Image titled Add Columns in Microsoft Word Step 11

    6

    Click a number of columns. You’ll see options like One, Two, Three, and so on at the top of this window. Clicking an option will apply it to your document.

    • If you highlighted text, your settings will be applied only to the highlighted text.

  7. Image titled Add Columns in Microsoft Word Step 12

    7

    Modify the column width and separation. You can do this by clicking the up or down arrow to the right of «Width» and the «Spacing» values, respectively.

    • You can also uncheck the box next to «Equal column width» in order to make one column wider than the other.

  8. Image titled Add Columns in Microsoft Word Step 13

    8

    Check the box next to «Line between» to draw a divider. Doing so will place a visible line between your columns.

    • If you don’t want a visible divider, leave this option unchecked.

  9. Image titled Add Columns in Microsoft Word Step 14

    9

    Click the «Apply to» drop-down menu. Doing so will allow you to click Selected text or Whole document to apply your column settings to the respective amounts of text.

  10. Image titled Add Columns in Microsoft Word Step 15

    10

    Click OK. This will apply your settings and divide any selected text as per your customized column rules.

    11. Advertisement

Add New Question

  • Question

    How do I add columns to the middle of the document without changing the format of the entire document?

    Ps46

    In Word, type the lines of text in a single column anywhere in the document. Then, select the lines of text and click the Page Layout tab. In the Page Setup options, click Columns and select the desired number of columns. Word automatically creates continuous section breaks before and after the columns. In some cases, it may be impossible to do without changing the format of the document.

  • Question

    How do I rotate a page in Word?

    Community Answer

    Select the pages or paragraphs whose orientation you want to change. Click Page Layout > Page Setup Dialog Box Launcher. In the Page Setup box, under Orientation, click Portrait or Landscape. Click the Apply to box and click Selected text.

Ask a Question

200 characters left

Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered.

Submit

Advertisement

Thanks for submitting a tip for review!

About This Article

Article SummaryX

1. Open Microsoft Word or an existing Word document.
2. Click Blank document.
3. Click Layout.
4. Click Columns.
5. Click a number of columns.

Did this summary help you?

Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 533,628 times.

Is this article up to date?

Источник

I’ll admit it — I’m not a big fan of adding columns in Microsoft Word.  Not that there’s anything wrong with columns, per se.  Columns work fine (until they don’t).  But in a legal office environment, I usually format blocks of information with tables because they’re a bit easier to control.

That said, I have seen lots of legal professionals insert multiple columns in Microsoft Word to format things like service lists in Certificates of Service.  Hey, to each her [his] own.

So if you want to format text with columns in Microsoft Word documents, here’s what you need to know:

Inserting columns: the basic primer

Everything starts from the Layout tab (known as Page Layout in versions 2007-2010) on the Ribbon:

Click on More Columns, and you’re taken to a dialog box that allows you to set up your columns exactly the way you want them.

The default is one column — just a regular document.  You can use one of the presets (the two-column layout is useful for the service list application I mentioned above).  Or you can customize it within an inch of its life. Width?  Space between columns 1 and 2, or 2 and 3, or …?  How about a line between them (like a newsletter would have)?  You decide!

(If you don’t want your columns to all be the same width, be sure to uncheck the “Equal column width” checkbox at the bottom of the dialog box.  Then, you’ll be able to customize the width of each column separately.)

Navigating between columns

Once you’ve set up your columns, you come to the tricky part. This is part of the reason I usually opt for tables rather than columns.  If you use tables, moving between the cells is easy — just use the Tab key.  To insert a column, however, you need to know a few tricks.

Say you’re typing in the first column of your document and you want to end that column there and start typing in the second column.  To do that, you have to insert a column break.  You can insert a column break in one of two ways:

  • Press CTRL-SHIFT-ENTER  simultaneously; or
  • Go to the Layout tab, click Breaks, and choose Column

Personally, I’d go with Option 1 (assuming I remember the key combination in the heat of the moment).

Once you’ve inserted a column break, your cursor is in the next column, ready for you to type.  When you insert a column break in your last column (the one farthest to the right), the cursor will go to the first column on the next page.

Viewing column boundaries

To me, it’s tough to work with columns (or tables, for that matter) if I can’t really see them.  To turn on the column boundaries so you can see your columns laid out on the page, go to the File tab (or click the Office button in version 2007) and click Options, then go to Advanced and check the box next to Show text boundaries:

When columns are only part of your document

But what if only part of your document consists of multiple columns?

If you go back to the Columns dialog box (via Layout > Columns > More Columns), you’ll notice a drop-down at the bottom of the box:

If you choose This Point Forward, that will allow you to insert columns at the point your cursor is sitting in.  Once you’ve inserted your columnar data, then go back to the Format Columns dialog box and choose the One Column format (being careful to once again choose This Point Forward in that bottom drop-down), and your document will return to the single-column format without disturbing the multi-column insertion you’ve just worked so hard on.

But what if you want to insert a two- or three- (or more-) column block of text into the middle of a one-column, normal document?

You may want to use a slightly different procedure, depending on whether you’re creating a brand-new document or you’re inserting a multi-column layout into the middle of an existing single-column document. You’re using the same dialog box, but if you’re editing an existing document and placing a multi-column layout in the middle, you’ll need to take a couple of extra precautions to ensure you don’t inadvertently create a formatting nightmare.

Inserting multi-columns into a new document

Let’s say you’re typing along in a brand-new document and decide that the next bit of text needs to be in two (or more) columns. There’s no text after the point where your cursor is right now, so you can switch back to single-column format once you get done inserting the multi-column section.

If you go back to the Columns dialog box (via Layout > Columns > More Columns), you’ll notice a drop-down at the bottom of the box:

If you choose This Point Forward, that will allow you to insert columns at the point your cursor is sitting in.  Once you’ve inserted your columnar data, then go back to the Format Columns dialog box and choose the One Column format (being careful to once again choose This Point Forward in that bottom drop-down), and your document will return to the single-column format without disturbing the multi-column insertion you’ve just worked so hard on.

Inserting columns into the middle of an existing document

If you’re editing an existing document and you want to insert a multi-column layout somewhere in the middle of text you’ve already got typed, the “this point forward” method may result in a temporary and fixable but still infuriating mess.

Here’s how to avoid it: Insert section breaks before and after the point at which you want to insert your columns:

… then in Apply to:, choose This section instead:

Here’s a video demonstration:

Video: Inserting a column into the middle of an existing document (without creating a mess)

How do you see yourself using columns in your documents?

Источник

Updated: 01/18/2023 by

Microsoft Word

Columns are a great organizational tool. In a document, they can divide a page to present specific content in an orderly fashion. Microsoft Word accommodates 1 to 13 columns on one page. The following sections show you how to create, add, and delete columns in Word documents.

Creating columns

  1. Open the Word document where you want to add columns.
  2. In the Ribbon, click the Layout tab.
  3. In the Page Setup section, click the down arrow under Columns, then select More Columns.
  4. For Number of columns, you can type in a number or use the up and down arrows to select a number. If the Equal column width option is checked, Word automatically sets the columns to be evenly spaced.
  5. Click OK to add the columns to the Word document.

Word columns

  1. In Image 1 below, you can see how the text «The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog» looks with three columns. In Image 2 below, you can see what the same text looks like with the maximum 13 columns.

Image 1

Word columns 3

Image 2

Word columns 13

Inserting column breaks

After creating a document with multiple columns, it may be necessary to enter column breaks into the text to move text to the next available column.

To insert a column break, move your cursor to where you want to insert the break and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter shortcut key. Alternatively, you can go to the Layout tab on the Ribbon, click Breaks, and then select Column.

Removing columns

If you need to delete columns in a Word document, follow the steps below.

  1. Open the Word document where you need to remove columns.
  2. In the Ribbon, click the Layout tab.
  3. In the Page Setup section, click the down arrow under Columns, then select More Columns.
  4. For Number of columns, you can type in a number or use the up and down arrows to select a number. The number entered or selected must be less than the current number of columns, if you want to remove columns.
  5. Click OK to remove the columns in the Word document.

Tip

If you don’t want the document to have any columns, click Layout, Columns, and select One.

Источник

This content has been archived, and is no longer maintained by Indiana University. Information here may no longer be accurate, and links may no longer be available or reliable.

In Microsoft Word, you can set up either traditional columns or
newspaper-style columns. Traditional columns are simpler to set up,
but can be difficult to work with, as you have to fill the first
column before you can proceed to the next. With newspaper columns,
however, you can more easily switch between columns; also, information
you enter will not overflow into another column.

On this page:

  • Traditional columns
  • Newspaper-style columns

Traditional columns

To create traditional columns in a document:

Word 2007

  1. Highlight the text you want to format; if you do not highlight any
    text, Word will format the entire document.

  2. Click the tab, and then select
    .

  3. Choose the format of your columns. You can select a preset,
    automatically formatted number of columns with equal spacing by
    clicking , , , or
    . You can also manually select the number, width, and
    spacing of the columns by clicking .

  4. Click .

Back to top

Word 2003

  1. From the drop-down menu, select
    .

  2. Choose the format of your columns. You can choose from preset
    columns, or you can manually select the number, width, and spacing of
    the columns.

  3. Click .

Back to top

Newspaper-style columns

To create newspaper-style columns using a table:

  1. Open a new document.
  2. In Word 2007, from the tab, click ,
    and then select . In other versions of
    Word, from the menu, choose , and then
    choose .

  3. In the «Number of columns:» field, type the number of columns you
    want in your document. For «Number of rows:», type
    1 (the number one).

  4. Click to create your table. At this point your table
    will probably be small.

You can also add or remove table borders:

  1. Move your cursor to the table. In Word 2007, from the tab, select . In previous versions
    of Word, from the menu, select .

  2. Choose the border options you want for your table. You can choose
    from presets (such as «None») on the left side of the window, or you
    can manually select which borders to turn on or off from the «Preview»
    section on the right.

  3. Beneath the «Preview» section, you will see «Apply to:». Make
    sure this option is set to if you want your border
    selection to apply to the entire table.

  4. If you see gray lines where you have chosen not to have a border,
    don’t worry. These are non-printing gridlines meant to help you see
    where your columns are. To turn gridlines on and off:

    • Word 2007: From the tab, select
      .
    • Previous versions of Word for Windows: From the
      menu, choose or .
    • Word for Macintosh: From the menu,
      check or uncheck .

Back to top

This is document ahjv in the Knowledge Base.

Last modified on 2018-01-18 12:34:59.

Источник

Понравилась статья? Поделить с друзьями:
  • Setting columns in excel
  • Setting column names in excel
  • Setting cell color in excel
  • Setting a cell value in excel vba
  • Set word createobject word application