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: Changing the Number of Columns.

Changing the Number of Columns

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated November 7, 2020)

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 and you only want to affect a single section, position the insertion point in the section that you want to affect.
  2. Display the Layout (Page Layout earlier versions of Word) tab of the ribbon.
  3. In the Page Setup group click Columns and then More Columns. Word displays the Columns dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

    4. Figure 1. The Columns dialog box.

  4. Change the value in the Number of Columns field to the number of columns desired.
  5. Using the Apply To drop-down list, select Whole Document or This Section depending on what you want your change to affect.
  6. 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 (12914) 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: 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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Configuring Spell Check for Internet Addresses

When writing technical documents, URLs are a common thing to include in your text. Normally Word will mark these as ...

Discover More

Printing Portions of Mail Merged Documents

When you use a data source to create a bunch of documents in a mail merge, you might not want to print all the documents ...

Discover More

Outstanding Macro Function Reference

Looking for a great reference that you can use to help figure out the various worksheet functions available in Excel? ...

Discover More

Do More in Less Time! Are you ready to harness the full power of Word 2013 to create professional documents? In this comprehensive guide you'll learn the skills and techniques for efficiently building the documents you need for your professional and your personal life. Check out Word 2013 In Depth today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Disappearing Column Formatting

Two things go into making your documents look just right: content and formatting. If the formatting seems to disappear on ...

Discover More

Displaying a Column Number

Word allows you to format your document to use columns. If you want to number those columns for a printout, Word provides ...

Discover More

Adding Columns to Your Page Layout

Most documents are created using a single column of text. Word, however, allows you to use many, many columns in your ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is one more than 1?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

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.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.

Links and Sharing
OUR COMPANY
OUR PRODUCTS
OUR SITES
 

Copyright © 2021 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.