How to put text in newspaper columns

Choose Format, then Columns in Write by Zaweba and pick how many columns you want, from one to six. Text then flows down the first column and on into the next, just like a newspaper. You can set the space between the columns, draw a line between them and add a column break wherever you want the next column to start.

When columns help

Columns make short lines, and short lines are quick to read. That is why newsletters, parish magazines, leaflets, menus and price lists so often use two or three of them. A landscape page with three columns can be folded into a simple leaflet, and a two column page of club news fits a lot more on a sheet without looking crowded.

They are less helpful for letters, essays and reports, where one column reads more naturally. Use them where they earn their place.

Setting columns step by step

Put the cursor in the part of the document you want in columns, then open Format and choose Columns. Pick the number of columns, set the space between them, and tick the option for a line between if you want a thin rule separating them. Confirm, and the text reflows straight away on the page.

Columns belong to a section. If the whole document is one section, the whole document goes into columns. To have a full-width heading at the top of a page and columns underneath, put a continuous section break after the heading and set columns only for the section below. The same trick works the other way, to end a block of columns and go back to full width for a closing note.

Controlling where text breaks

Left alone, text fills one column to the bottom of the page before moving to the next. That is usually what you want for running text. For a newsletter, though, you might want a new story to start at the top of the second column. Insert a column break at that point and the text after it jumps to the next column.

Page breaks still work as normal, and section breaks can start on the next page or carry on continuously on the same page, so you can mix layouts on a single sheet.

Making columns look tidy

Narrow columns show up uneven spacing quickly. Keep the body text a little smaller than you would in a single column document, and use left alignment unless you are confident about justified text in narrow measures. Headings that span one column should be short so they do not wrap onto three lines.

Pictures in columns work best set inline, at the width of the column, so they move with the text. Write's picture options also offer square, tight and top-and-bottom wrap if you want text to flow around an image.

Write lays out the screen, printing and PDF export with the same engine, so the columns you see are the columns you print. Zoom to whole page to judge the balance of each page before you send it to the printer.

Columns in files from other programs

If someone sends you a .docx or .rtf file that uses columns, Write lays them out as columns rather than squashing them into one long strip, so a newsletter made in another word processor still looks like a newsletter. Save it back as .docx and the column settings go back with it.

For anything more ambitious, with text boxes, pull quotes and pages built around pictures, a layout app is the right tool. For a clean newsletter or leaflet, Write by Zaweba's columns are often all you need.