Microsoft Word’s column format is an odd concept, but one that can be easy to understand once you accept the quirky way Word does things.
Wrapping your arms around columns, specifically columns of text in Word, involves accepting two knowledge nuggets:
- All text in a Word document is formatted into columns.
- Columns are a section-level format.
When you start new Word document, or consider any Word document you’ve written, accept that the text is already formatted into columns. Specifically, the text is formatted into one column filling the page’s left and right margins.
To increase the number of columns, reset the column format. That way the single column becomes two or three, as illustrated in Figure 1; text flows down the first column, then up to the top of the second column, then to the top of the third column or to the next page.
Figure 1. Various column formats in Microsoft Word.
To change columns, use the Column command found in the Page Setup group on the Page Layout tab. Choose a new column format from the button. The column format chosen affects all text in your document. That is, unless the document is split into sections. In that case, the column format applies to only the current section.
As a section-level format, you can change the number of columns multiple times in the same document. To do so, slice the document up into sections, shown in Figure 2. There you see a page with two columns, then a single column, a page with a single column and then two columns, and a page that looks really screwy, but merely shows how to change column formats twice on the same page.
Figure 2. Different ways to break up column formatting by using sections.
Changing columns is done by applying a continuous section break: Click the mouse where you want to switch column formats. From the Page Layout tab, choose Breaks>Continuous. Or if you want the new column format to start on the next page, choose Breaks>Next Page. Then choose a new number of columns. That’s the formats shown in Figure 2 are created.
Finally, if you want to start a new column at the top of a page, use a Column Break, illustrated in Figure 3.
Figure 3. A column break stops one column mid-point on a page, then continues the text at the top of the next column.
To set a column break, position the cursor where you want the first column to end. Then choose the Breaks>Column. That command is found in the Page Setup group on the Page Layout tab.
Be careful not to confuse a column break with a section break! The section break changes column formats in the middle of a document. A column break ends a column on a page and does not affect the number of columns in your document.
