In Office 2007, click the Office button and then click Word Options. Click the File menu and choose Options (under Help).I recommend that you use small indents or don't indent paragraphs at all. Figure Cīecause you're working with short lines, you'll need to rethink paragraph indents. In Word 2003, choose Columns from the Format menu. To adjust the gutter, choose More Columns from the Columns drop-down (on the Page Layout tab), as shown in Figure C. If it's too narrow, readers will wander across the gutter to the next column instead of wrapping around to the next line in the column. The spacing between columns is the gutter. Any more or less makes the document less readable. However, the general run allows between 40 to 60 characters per line. The type of document will determine the number of columns and whether columns are equal in width. That means you can fit more content on a page using columns. You can also use a smaller font than you might ordinarily use. 3: Adjust spacingĬolumns usually make content more readable because of the shorter lines. Select existing text to change the column property for only that text. Figure B shows the results of dividing the existing single column of text into two columns. Then, using the instructions given in the introduction, select the number of columns you want. However, you must select the text first as shown in Figure A. If the text already exists, the technique is the same. When you enable columns, Word will automatically guide your text into columnar format.
When you need to align text across the page from column to column (in parallel format) use tabs or a table. This means that you can't just click inside any column and start typing. Text will flow down the left-most column and into the top of the next column in what's known as newspaper style. Once you enable columns, you must stick with the columnar flow. Columns are visible only in Print Layout view. If your columns suddenly disappear, check your view property. To return to just one column - the default - repeat the process and choose one column. In Word 2003, click the Columns tool on the Standard toolbar and choose up to four columns or choose Columns from the Format menu. To enable columns, click the Page Layout tab, choose the number of columns from the Columns drop-down in the Page Setup section, and start typing. LEARN MORE: Office 365 Consumer pricing and features These 10 tips will help you generate columns quickly and easily and maintain them with little to no effort. 2018 while some menu options might have changed, the steps shown in this tutorial are still the same.Īrranging text and graphics into columns is an effective way to make your document more readable and to fit more content on a single page. 2013 and the video tutorial for this article published Dec. Editor's Note: This article was originally published in Apr.