Productive U Podcast

Parallel columns are usually shorter than newspaper columns, and are visually more horizontal. Parallel columns require column breaks and more section breaks than Newspaper columns. They are harder to maintain, but can be very effective in some documents. We will explain how to set them up in this tip:

1. Press Ctrl+Shift+8 to turn on hidden characters.
2. Starting with a blank document, type your opening paragraph or “=rand(1,8)” and press Enter. This will give you some text to work with.
3. Click on the Insert menu (Office 2007: Page Layout tab) and choose Breaks (your cursor should be on a new line below your paragraph).
4. Select Continuous in the Breaks dialog box and click OK.
5. Click on the Format menu (Office 2007: Page Layout tab), and choose Columns…
6. Choose Three and click OK.
7. Type some text or “=rand(1,3)” and press Enter.
8. Place your cursor at the end of your text, click on the Insert menu (Office 2007: Page Layout tab), choose Breaks, select Column break, and click OK.
9. You are now in your second column. Repeat steps 7 and 8.
10. You are now in your third column. Repeat step 7.
11. Because this in the last column, we need to create a section break to get back to the first column. Click on the Insert menu (Office 2007: Page Layout tab), choose Breaks, select Continuous, and click OK.
12. To continue with normal text after your columns, make sure your cursor is after the last Continuous section break, then click on the Format menu (Office 2007: Page Layout tab), choose Columns, select One, and click OK.

Note: You do not want to use a column break in step 11, because that will put you on a new page in the first column, and more than likely you will have a lot of unwanted empty space.

Note: You can turn hidden characters off when you are done editting your document by pressing Ctrl+Shift+8 again. Remember this is a toggle switch, so you can use it again to turn them back on.

You may notice that your text looks somewhat like a table. In the next tip, we will show you how to make your document use a table, and look like it has parallel columns. In general, one method takes no longer to use than the other. If you share your documents, however, it may be better to use a table; editing documents with parallel columns can be tricky for those who are not familiar with them.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 6th, 2009 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Business Communication, Microsoft Word. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.