Chapter 20
In This Chapter
Understanding columns
Breaking your text into columns
Creating a three-column brochure
Returning to one-column text
Switching column layouts in a document
Breaking up a column on a page
If someone asks about columns and you immediately think of something written in a magazine or newspaper, you’re a writer. If you think Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, you’re a history nerd. And if you think of rows of marching soldiers or rolling tanks, you’re a military buff. What you probably don’t think of are columns of text in a document, despite Word sporting such a clever formatting tool.
You probably don’t think of a document’s text as a column. No, it’s just text on a page, margin to margin. Secretly, however, Word looks at such text as a single column. So whether you use columns or not, Word has already formatted your document that way.
To set the number of text columns on a page, you use Word’s Columns command: Click the Layout tab, and in the Page Setup group, click the Columns button. A menu appears, listing common column-formatting options, as shown on the left in Figure 20-1.
To be more specific with column layout, choose the More Columns command, at the bottom of the Columns menu. The Columns dialog box appears, as shown on the right in Figure 20-1.
The Columns dialog box helps you to create and design multiple columns not available on the Columns menu: Use the Number of Columns box to set the quantity of columns desired. Use the Preview window to determine how the page is formatted. Click the OK button to apply the column format to the text.
When you desire to impress someone with your text, I suggest putting two columns on your page. Any more columns, and the text width would be too skinny and difficult to read. Two columns, however, is a great way to get fancy and remain legible.
Start up a new document.
Or if you have an existing document, move the toothpick cursor to the document’s tippy-top by pressing Ctrl+Home.
Click the Columns button and choose Two.
You’re done.
The entire document flows into two columns. As you type, you’ll see text flow down the left side of the page, and then hop up to the top right to start a new column.
The three-column text format works nicely on paper in landscape mode. This method is how most trifold brochures are created. Obey these steps:
Choose Orientation ⇒ Landscape.
The document’s pages appear in landscape orientation, which is best for three columns of text and traditional for trifold brochures, programs, and documents.
Click the Columns button and choose Three.
Your trifold brochure is effectively formatted. Three columns are evenly spaced across the page, as illustrated in Figure 20-2.
For more sprucing up, summon the Columns dialog box; click the Columns button and choose More Columns. That way, you can adjust the spacing between columns, add a line between, and perform other magic.
See Chapter 22 for information on sticking graphics into a document, like those in Figure 20-2.
Converting a multicolumn document into a “normal” document merely involves switching the format back to one column:
Click the Columns button and choose One.
The document is restored.
When these steps don’t work, summon the Columns dialog box (refer to Figure 20-1) and choose One from the list of presets. Ensure that Whole Document is chosen from the Apply To menu and then click the OK button. The columns are gone.
You can stop the multicolumn format in one of several ways. For a newspaper column, the newspaper can go bankrupt. For Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns, civilization can collapse. For a military column, use a nuke. For a column of text, however, Word offers a number of tricks, none of which involves bankruptcy, revolution, or radiation.
Your whole document doesn't have to sport just one column format. You can split things up so that part of the document is in one column and another part is in two columns and then maybe another part goes back to only one column.
To change column formats at a specific spot in the text, follow these steps:
Click the Columns button and choose More Columns.
The Columns dialog box appears.
Choose the new column format.
Click one of the presets or use the clicker thing to set a specific number of columns.
The text is broken at a specific point in your document (set in Step 1). Above that point, one column format is used; after that point, the format chosen in Step 4 is used.
To help lay out more than two columns on a page, it helps to use a column break. Like a page break, the column break ends a column. Text after the break starts at the top of the next column, either on the same page or the next page, depending on where you place the column break.
In Figure 20-3, you see an example of a column break. The column break is inserted in the column on the left. That column break stops the left side column and continues the text at the top of the right column.
To break a column, heed these steps:
Click to place the insertion pointer in your document.
The insertion pointer’s location becomes the start of the next column.
In the Page Setup group, click the Breaks button.
A menu appears.
Choose Column.
The text hops to the top of the next column.
To remove a column break, switch to Draft view: Click the View tab and choose Draft. The column break appears in the text as a line by itself. Delete that line. Switch back to Print Layout view to examine your document’s columns.
52.14.112.219