Summary: This video tutorial explains how to make efficient use of the columns layout in Microsoft Word. This layout is excellent for newsletters, magazines, and newspaper style printed materials. I have personally used this layout for creating a bi-fold pamphlet. http://youtu.be/8nMsyIl54JE There are a few notes that I need to mention with regard to the columns layout in Microsoft Word. Many people choose this layout with the expectation that they will be able to type some text into the left column and then tab over to the right column and type more text. That is not the case with the columns layout in MS Word. If you want to have that functionality, you should use a table with two columns and one row minimum. A table will allow you to tab back and forth from one side to the other in a Word document. Another thing I want to mention is that the text I pasted into the document in the video was taken from lipsum.com. That is a handy website for generating filler text for any document. If you have Microsoft Word 2007 or later, Microsoft has added a built-in Lorem Ipsum text generator. Simply type the following syntax into any blank Word document: Microsoft Word allows you to specify the number of paragraphs and lines that it will generate. For example, if you type =lorem(10,5), Microsoft Word will generate 10 paragraphs with 5 lines of text in each paragraph. Pretty handy feature when you want to test the formatting of a Word document.
