Automating a Two-Column Section

Ralph has a document in which a large number of sections have to be displayed in two columns, with a line between the columns. He wonders if there is a way to automate that process.

As with most suggestions to automate things in Word, the solution involves the use of a macro. And, as with any macro, you need to understand what the macro needs to do before creating it. In Ralph's case, creating his two-column sections inevitably involves the following steps:

1. Insert a continuous section break at the beginning of where you want the columns to begin.
2. Insert a continuous section break at the beginning of where you want the single column to resume.
3. Position the insertion point between the two section breaks.
4. Format the section to use two columns with a line between the columns.

With the steps understood, a macro implementation is relatively straightforward. A macro would have no way of knowing where you want the two-column section to begin and end, so it makes sense that a prerequisite for the macro is that you need to select the text you want in the new section. That way the macro can place a section break at the beginning of the selected text and just after it. Here's a sample macro:

Sub Insert2ColSection()
    Dim selStartPara As Paragraph
    Dim selEndPara As Paragraph
    Dim rng1 As Range   ' start of selected paragraphs
    Dim rng2 As Range   ' ending of selected paragraphs
    Dim rng3 As Range   ' newly inserted section

    ' Check to see if selection has been made
    If Selection.Type = wdSelectionIP Then
        MsgBox "Please select some text first.", vbExclamation
        Exit Sub
    End If

    ' Get the paragraphs at the start and end of the selection.
    ' Necessary because you want to place your section breaks between
    ' existing paragraphs, not within paragraphs.
    Set selStartPara = Selection.Paragraphs(1)
    Set selEndPara = Selection.Paragraphs(Selection.Paragraphs.Count)

    ' Insert continuous section break after the ending paragraph
    Set rng2 = selEndPara.Range
    rng2.Collapse Direction:=wdCollapseEnd
    rng2.InsertBreak Type:=wdSectionBreakContinuous

    ' Insert continuous section break before the starting paragraph
    Set rng1 = selStartPara.Range
    rng1.Collapse Direction:=wdCollapseStart
    rng1.InsertBreak Type:=wdSectionBreakContinuous

    ' Get the range between the two inserted section breaks
    Set rng3 = rng1.Duplicate
    rng3.End = rng2.End

    ' Apply two-column formatting with line between
    If rng3.Sections.Count = 1 Then
        With rng3.Sections(1).PageSetup.TextColumns
            .SetCount NumColumns:=2
            .LineBetween = True
        End With
    End If
End Sub

The macro first checks to ensure that a selection has been made. If not, then the macro exits. If so, then the macro determines the first paragraph in the selection (selStartPara) and the ending paragraph in the selection (selEndPara). Continuous section breaks are then inserted after the ending paragraph and before the first paragraph.

Finally, the newly inserted section is selected and the two-column formatting, with a line, is applied. Since the macro works exclusively with ranges, the original text selected by the user before running the macro is not disturbed.

If you want to adjust the macro to use a different number of columns in the selected text, just change the value assigned to NumColumns near the end of the macro.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13234) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, and Word in Microsoft 365.