How to Create Columns in Open Office

If you want columns in your word processing document, but you don't have Microsoft Word, you can easily make columns using the free open source word processor, Open Office. This is a fairly easy process and should only take you one or two minutes.

Things You'll Need

• Open Office

Instructions

1. In Open Office, click on the "Format" toolbar at the top of the window.

2. Now select "Columns..."

3. The "Columns" dialog box will now pop up. You will see five small graphics side by side, each depicting a different arrangement of columns. If you would like to have two columns in your document, choose the image that looks like two side-by-side columns in a newspaper.

4. Click "OK." The dialog box will close, and your document will be automatically reformatted to have two columns on each page. The text will wrap from the first column to the second before continuing onto the next page.

Tips & Warnings

• If you want more than two columns, you can choose another configuration in the "Columns" dialogue box. Next to the five column layout images, there is a selector where you can manually choose any number of columns, from one to 99.

• If you don't want your columns to be evenly spaced, you can change their widths and spacing in the "Width and spacing" section of the "Columns" dialog box. This allows you to create just about any configuration of columns that you can imagine.

• If you don't have Open Office, you can download it from openoffice.org for free. It is an open source project.

References

• OpenOffice.org: About Open Office