Hands on: Creating columns and boxes

Last time we looked at several DTP-like features in Word, including getting pictures precisely where you want them, tweaking text wraps around graphics and using the drawing canvas to annotate a picture with call-outs. This time we’ll take in two more powerful page layout features - columns and text boxes.

Newspaper-style columns - such as those you are reading now - are not just used to make page layouts more versatile - they’re a major aid to legibility. If this page, for example, were set in one column, there would be about 25 words to a line. This would be difficult to read, as you’d need to make a conscious effort to stay ‘on the line’ without following it with a finger and sticking out your tongue a bit. So, type on wide pages has been set in ‘snaking’ columns since the 1455 Gutenberg Bible.

Creating text in columns is straightforward enough - the dialogue you get from Format, Columns… is self-explanatory (see screen 2). There are, however, a few things you should know that make columnar life much easier. First, although you can apply columns to a selection, it makes more sense to use continuous section breaks - this means, for example, that you can have a heading and subheading spanning the width of the page, followed by body text in columns.

Second, reading and writing in columns on screen is very tedious. The columns you see on news web pages, for example, are really tables - you should never have to scroll back up the page to continue reading a story. So, if you want to edit your text rather than lay out the page, switch to Normal or Outline view and the column format will (temporarily) disappear.

Avoid justifying text in narrow columns - with just a few words per line, you’ll get unsightly patches and ‘rivers’ of white. Having said that, Gutenberg made a pretty good job of it, but if you look closely (there are two copies at the British Library website), you’ll find he used a lot of hyphenation.

As well as starting and stopping multiple columns (or changing column layout) using continuous section breaks, you can force text to move to the next column by inserting a break. Although widow and orphan control extends to columns - so you won’t get the first or last line of a paragraph all on its own - there are occasions when you may want to force a break. Insert, Break, Column Break does just that. You can use this to ‘balance’ columns - say you have two and a bit columns on the last page and you want to make them the same length. There’s a much easier way to do this, however - insert another continuous section break at the end, which will balance the columns above it automatically.

Boxing clever
Most documents we create - letters, reports and so on - have a single linear text flow. But some things, such as headers and footers or foot and end notes, stay clear of this flow, keeping to their allotted place on the page.

Text boxes are another way of separating text from the main flow, and they have all sorts of uses. You might want to ‘box out’ some text that explains a point that is tangential to the main subject. Or you might want to insert a ‘pull quote’ to entice potential readers with a juicy quotation from the main text - these work especially well when they span more than one column or extend into the margin.

The default text box settings are rather dull - you get a 0.75pt black line around the box. Right-click on the box and Format text box. On the Colours and Lines tab, experiment with thicker lines and other colours. Using a coloured fill with a white dashed line, for example, creates a crenellated edge. You can also set the wrap options in exactly the same way as pictures, which we tackled last month. Some text boxes have no border, being made to stand out just by using a different font and white space.

One little-known feature of text boxes is that they don’t have to be rectangular. You can create any Autoshape from the drawing toolbar, then right-click on it and ‘Add text’. Alternatively, with a normal text box selected, you can click on the Draw menu on the Drawing toolbar and ‘Change Autoshape’. You can use pretty much any closed shape, but don’t expect too much - the text itself retains rectangular margins within the shape.

When you’re engaged in power user page layout like this, it helps to turn on formatting marks and text boundaries from Tools, Options, View. Having section and column breaks visible is a great aid to troubleshooting. This does, however, create a lot of clutter on the page, so if you want to see your pages in all their unencumbered beauty, switch to Print Preview. You’ll find that with the Magnifier button deactivated, you can still edit text and move objects around.