When to use columns in word

Much like ancient Greek architecture, some forms of writing would fall apart without columns. Newspapers, websites, journals, magazines and newsletters, for example, all present text in neat columns to increase readability and ensure professional presentation.

If you are writing something along these lines in Microsoft Word, then, you’ll need to know how the column formatting options work. Read on to find out.

Column Formatting in Microsoft Word

To use the pre-set column options in Microsoft Word, all you need to do is:

• Select the text that you want to format using the cursor
• Go to Layout > Page Setup > Columns on the ribbon
• Pick the number and style of columns required

If you do not select any text first, the column formatting will be applied to the entire document.

Custom Column Formatting

You can also create custom columns for more control over how text is presented. To do this:

• Go to Layout > Page Setup > Columns and click More Columns…
• In the new window, select:
  • The number per page
  • Whether to use a line between columns
  • The width of each column
  • Which parts of the document to format (selecting This point forward will apply a section break at the cursor position)

When you are done, click OK to apply the selected options. This will format all selected text (or the entire document) according to your preferences.

Adding a Column Break

You can also add a “column break.” This is useful if you want to end one column part way down and start a new one at the top of the page. To do this, place the cursor where you want a column to end and go to Layout > Page Setup > Breaks > Column. This will add a column break in the place selected.

When to Use Columns

Finally, a brief word on when to use this formatting style. It would be unusual in most documents printed at portrait A4 size, such as college essays or business reports. Typically, you would only do so if a style guide requested that you format part or all of a document in this way.

However, for anything that will be printed or displayed in a wider format (e.g., on landscape A4 or larger paper), column formatting can make text easier to read by reducing the line length.

You don’t need to create tables to structure text into columns. Tables are useful for displaying translated versions of the legal document side-by-side, but table cells break the text flow and are not recommended for multi-column layouts. It is more convenient to use columns for text formatting in most other cases. Word also allows you to adjust your columns by adding column breaks.

Format text in columns

To format a text into columns, do the following:

   1.   Do one of the following:

• To use the same number of columns for an entire document, click anywhere in the document (empty or with content).

  If you choose to format text in columns, Word fills the first column with text on the page and then moves to the beginning of the next column. When all columns on one page are filled, the text moves to the next page.

• To format only a part of the document, select the paragraphs that you want to wrap in columns.

  If you select a part of the text and wrap it in columns, Word inserts section breaks at the beginning and end of the selected text to delineate the area where the column layout is applied:

  

  See more about breaks and how to display them.

To manually specify where the text in each column should end, you can use a column break.

   2.   On the Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click the Columns button:

   3.   In the Columns dropdown list, select one of the options:

• One (used by default),
• Two, Three to create two or three columns of equal width,
• Left, Right to create two columns of unequal width,
• More Columns… to specify more options in the Columns dialog box:

  

  • In the Presets section, you can choose the same options as in the Columns dropdown list – One, Two, Three, Left, or Right.
  • If you need more columns, type or select the number of columns you need in the Number of columns field. The maximum number of columns may vary depending on the font, font size, margins, etc. E.g., 13.
  • The Line between checkbox inserts a vertical line between columns. This line clearly defines column borders, especially if you want to fit as much content on the page as possible (very handy for cheat sheets).
    See more options below.

Format columns

   I.   It is recommended to justify the paragraphs in columns to give the page a clean and organized appearance. To justify the column text, select it and do one of the following:

• On the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, click the Justify button:

  

• Press Ctrl+J.

   II.   To change the width of columns or the space between them, do the following:

   1.   Click anywhere in the columnar text.

   2.   Do one of the following:

• On the Layout tab, in the Page Layout group, click the Columns button, then choose More Columns…

  In the Columns dialog box, in the Width and spacing section:

  

  In the Width box for any columns, enter or select a new width.

  The Width measurements for the other columns change to match, and the width of all the columns changes.

  See how the columns will be displayed in the Preview section.

• On the horizontal ruler, drag the margins to change the width of the columns:

  

   III.   To reduce white space on text lines, you can set up Word to hyphenate the text and break long words into syllables. See how to hyphenate automatically and manually for more details.

Remove columns

To remove column layout for the selected text or entire document, do the following:

   1.   Click anywhere in the columnar text.

   2.   On the Layout tab, in the Page Layout group, click the Columns button, then choose One.

Insert a column break

In the Word document, you can manually break columns. When you break a column, the text after the break moves to the top of the next column:

You can display column breaks as regular nonprintable symbols. Word displays them as .

To insert a column break, position the cursor at the beginning of the line you want to start in the new column, and then do any of the following:

• On the Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click the Breaks button, and then click Column to insert a column break:

  

• Press Ctrl+Shift+Enter.

The column break is inserted, and the cursor moves to the beginning of the next column.

Remove a column break

To remove a column break, click at the left end of the break or select the break and press the Delete key.

/en/word/breaks/content/

Introduction

Sometimes the information you include in your document is best displayed in columns. Columns can help improve readability, especially with certain types of documents—like newspaper articles, newsletters, and flyers. Word also allows you to adjust your columns by adding column breaks.

Optional: Download our practice document.

Watch the video below to learn more about columns in Word.

To add columns to a document:

1. Select the text you want to format.

   

2. Select the Layout tab, then click the Columns command. A drop-down menu will appear.
3. Select the number of columns you want to create.

   

4. The text will format into columns.

   

Your column choices aren’t limited to the drop-down menu that appears. Select More Columns at the bottom of the menu to access the Columns dialog box. Click the arrows next to Number of columns: to adjust the number of columns.

If you want to adjust the spacing and alignment of columns, click and drag the indent markers on the Ruler until the columns appear the way you want.

To remove columns:

To remove column formatting, place the insertion point anywhere in the columns, then click the Columns command on the Layout tab. Select One from the drop-down menu that appears.

Adding column breaks

Once you’ve created columns, the text will automatically flow from one column to the next. Sometimes, though, you may want to control exactly where each column begins. You can do this by creating a column break.

To add a column break:

In our example below, we’ll add a column break that will move text to the beginning of the next column.

1. Place the insertion point at the beginning of the text you want to move.

   

2. Select the Layout tab, then click the Breaks command. A drop-down menu will appear.
3. Select Column from the menu.

   

4. The text will move to the beginning of the column. In our example, it moved to the beginning of the next column.

   

To learn more about adding breaks to your document, review our lesson on Breaks.

To remove column breaks:

1. By default, breaks are hidden. If you want to show the breaks in your document, click the Show/Hide command on the Home tab.

   

2. Place the insertion point to the left of the break you want to delete.

   

3. Press the delete key to remove the break.

   

Challenge!

1. Open our practice document.
2. Scroll to page 3.
3. Select all of the text in the bulleted list below Community Reminders and format it as two columns.
4. Place your cursor at the beginning of the fourth bullet in front of the word Visitors.
5. Insert a column break.
6. When you’re finished, your page should look something like this:

   

/en/word/headers-and-footers/content/

Asked by: Aditya Nolan

Score: 4.5/5
(62 votes)

Essential to formatting many documents, columns help break up the layout of a page full of text. You can set columns just about any way you like with the ability to specify the number, size, and borders.

How do you use columns in Microsoft Word?

On the Layout tab, click Columns, then click the layout you want.

What does the columns button do in Word?

Columns are a document-level format. Choosing a column format from the Columns button menu affects the entire document, reformatting every page to the number of columns specified. If you need to set different column formats on different pages, split the document into sections.

What are rows and columns in MS Word?

As discussed in the previous chapter, a table is a structure of vertical columns and horizontal rows with a cell at every intersection. A Word table can contain as many as 63 columns but the number of rows is unlimited. This chapter will teach you how to add and delete rows and columns in a table.

What is column example?

5. The definition of a column is a vertical arrangement of something, a regular article in a paper, magazine or website, or a structure that holds something up. An example of column is an Excel list of budget items. An example of column is a weekly recipe article.

38 related questions found

Give your business newsletters, manuals and brochures a designer look by arranging the text in them in a columnar layout. The shorter lines and punchier look of a two-column layout maximizes the use of space on the page and aids readability. In this article, I’ll show you how to work with columns inside Microsoft Word.

Benefits of Using Columns

When you lay out page text in columns you will generally fit a little more text on the page than if you laid it out so the lines stretch full width of the page. The shorter lines of text are also easier to read, as the reader’s eye doesn’t need to travel so far across the page before returning to read the next line of text. A document laid out in columns can look more approachable too, as there is white space within the page, which offers readers a place to rest their eyes.

Format Text in Columns

To format an entire document in columns, choose Format > Columns and select the number of columns to create. If you choose Two, the document will be laid out in two equal size columns arranged between the current page margins.

In most cases, you won’t format the entire document in columns, just part of it, such as everything below the heading and introductory paragraph. To do this select only the text you want to place in columns and choose Format > Columns. Select the number of columns – two is a good choice for a standard letter size page.

The Apply To dropdown list will show Selected Text indicating that only the text you have selected will convert to columns. To add a line between the columns check the Line Between checkbox and click OK.

The text in the columns will snake around the page similar to print in a newspaper. It will fill the first column on the page and then the second column. If you have more text than can fit on a single page it will scroll over to the first column on the next page and so on.

Managing the Last Page

If you have a long document formatted into columns, you may find that the last page is unbalanced, and that the text fills only part of one column. If you prefer the columns to be even, click after the last piece of text on the page and choose Insert > Break, and from the Section Break options choose Continuous and click OK. This evens out the text dividing it evenly to fill the two columns on the page.

Converting Columns to Text

If you have some text in your document that’s laid out in columns but you want it to stretch across the full page, you can undo the columns. To do this, select the text and choose Format > Columns, select One column and click OK. This returns the selected text to a single page-wide column.

When you convert text to columns or back to regular page-wide text, Word inserts continuous-section breaks into the document each time the column formatting changes. You can see these section breaks by clicking the Show/Hide button on the toolbar.

Starting a New Column

If you are typing text in a column and if you want to start a new one before you have completely filled the first, you can insert a column break. To do this, click after the last piece of text that you want to appear in the current column and choose Insert > Break > Column Break and click OK. This moves the following text to the top of the next column even though you haven’t yet filled the previous column.

Adding Images and Objects

When you add an image or textbox to a document, you can choose to place it in a column so that it moves with the text in the column or keep it independent of the text so that it remains in place as the rest of the text moves around it. Here’s how: click the image or text box and choose Format > Picture or Format > TextBox. From the Layout tab select In line with text to place the image inside the flow of text, or choose Square to move it out of the flow of text so that you can place it anywhere on the page.

Text Formatting Options

When you are working with columns of text, you will find that left-justified text and headings generally looks neater than fully justified text and centered headings. If you format text as fully justified, you will often see unsightly rivers of white space because the text will be stretched to fill the space between the column margins. You can reduce this effect if you hyphenate the text – to do this, choose Tools > Language > Hyphenation and select the Automatically Hyphenate document checkbox.

You will also find that bullet points and numbering look best left aligned in columns of text so the bullets or numbers are flush with the left margin of the column instead of inset in from the margin.

When you next work with a business document like a newsletter or manual in Microsoft Word, use your new column formatting skills to produce a more professional looking result.

Helen Bradley is a respected international journalist writing regularly for small business and computer publications in the USA, Canada, South Africa, UK and Australia. You can learn more about her at her Web site, HelenBradley.com

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