Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Office 365. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Quickly Changing Columns.
Word provides a tool on the Page Layout (Layout if you are using Word 2106 or a later version) tab of the ribbon that you can use to modify the number of columns in your document or in a text selection. If you click on the Columns tool (which is in the Page Setup group) Word shows a list of six options:
To use the Columns tool, simply choose one of the options. If you have a text selection selected prior to using the tool, then the choice you make is applied only to that selected text. If you don't have any text selected, then the entire section in which the insertion pointer is located is formatted using the number of columns you chose.
If you don't like the results of the layout change, you can immediately press Ctrl+Z to undo the formatting change.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (7914) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Office 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Quickly Changing Columns.
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Need to jump from one column to another on a page? You can use the handy shortcut keys described in this tip.
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Discover MoreBalancing the length of each column in a multi-column page layout can be a challenge. Here's a quick way to get Word to ...
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2019-08-16 16:50:53
Tony
(Layout if you are using Word 2106 or a later version)
That version of Word sounds advanced.
2019-08-13 05:01:10
Salim
Why does Word put Continuous Section break whenever I convert part of my text into columns. This makes it harder for me to format my document especially when I have multiple columns in there.
Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Office 365. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: 
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