Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Changing the Number of Columns.

Changing the Number of Columns

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated June 15, 2019)

If you have already added columns to your document, Word lets you easily change the number of columns you are using. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. If your document is formatted using more than one section, position the insertion point in the document section that you want to affect.
  2. Choose Columns from the Format menu. Word displays the Columns dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

    3. Figure 1. The Columns dialog box.

  3. Change the value in the Number of Columns field to the number of columns desired.
  4. In the Apply To box, select Whole Document or This Section (depending on what you want your change to affect).
  5. Click on OK.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (185) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Changing the Number of Columns.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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