In this lesson you'll learn how to use columns in your documents.
Columns are commonly used in newsletters, brochures, and similar documents. The
shorter lines of text provided by columns are easier to read, and also provide greater
flexibility in formatting a document with graphics, tables, and so on. Word for Windows
makes it easy to use columns in your documents. Figure 23.1 shows a document formatted
with three columns.
Figure 23.1
A document formatted with three columns.
Note that the Word for Windows columns feature creates newspaper style columns,
in which the text flows to the bottom of one column and then continues at the top
of the next column on the page. For side-by-side paragraphs, such as you would need
in a résumé or a script, use Word's table feature, covered in Lesson 27.
Word for Windows has four predefined column layouts:
You can apply any of these column formats to all or part of a document, to selected text, or from the insertion point onward. Follow these steps:
Figure 23.2
The Columns dialog box.
Timesaver Tip: Quick columns To display selected text or the entire document in 1 to 4 equal width columns, click the Columns button on the Toolbar then drag over the desired number of columns.
To view columns on-screen while you are editing, you must be working in Page Layout mode. In Normal mode, Word displays only a single column at a time (although your columns will be printed). To switch to Page Layout mode, select View Page Layout.
Here are the steps to follow to modify existing columns:
To convert multiple column text back to normal one column text, follow these steps:
This lesson showed you how to arrange text in columns. The next lesson shows you how to use styles.
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