Video:Word Tutorial: How to Create Columns

Transcript:Word Tutorial: How to Create Columns

Hello, I'm Nathanael Rittichier with About.com. And today I'm going to show you how to create columns within Microsoft Word.

How to Create Columns in Microsoft Word

I'm going to be creating these columns with text already in my document. But you can actually create a column and then type right into the column format. I'm, doing it this way so you can see the effect that is actually going to have on your text.

To insert columns all we have to do is go up to our tabs section here in the tops left corner of our document. And we're going to choose Page Layout. Under Page Layout there is actually a section call Columns. We will click that and this will give us several options. So, we have the option for two or three columns and there are actually many many more options you can choose. In-between these that will allow you to have it look exactly the way that you want it to look.

So to apply we simply select the option we want and it applies it to the document. To get three columns you simply click on the three-column option and that will add three columns to your entire document.

How to Put Sections of Text in Columns in Microsoft Word

So let's say within your document you only want a section of the text to actually be in columns. That's really easy to do. All we do is select the area that we would like to be in columns, we highlight that, you highlight by clicking with your mouse and dragging that over the text. And then we'll come back up to our columns option under the page layout tab we'll click that and we'll select out option. When you do that it automatically puts it into columns and leaves the rest of the text exactly like it was.

Keyboard Shortcuts for Adding Columns in Word Docs

Finally I want to show you a little nifty trick that you can do to put your text into columns without even having to use your mouse. All you do is simply hit your Option tab (ALT on PC) and that assigns various numbers and latters to tabs and actions. And if you look up here you will actually see that the Page Layout tab is actually given the letter P.

So you simply hit ALT and then P. And that will bring up all of your options within the page layout. Now if you'll notice columns is assigned with the letter J. So, we'll hit the letter J. Then using our arrow keys we can just scroll down through the options and when we find the one we want we hit the enter button and that's a really easy way to add columns without even having to lift your hand to the mouse. You hands can stay on the keyboard the entire time.

And that's how you create columns within a Word document. Thanks so much for watching! For more information visit us online at About.com

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