Columns are used in many different documents such as newspapers, magazines, academic journals,
and often in newsletters. Columns are a great tool that allows you to
arrange text in interesting ways. Before we get started formatting this newsletter
with columns, I'm going to add a little more space between my title and the main body of
the newsletter and change my font a bit. I want all of my article titles to be red.
If I want to change the rest of the titles, I can just select the text that is formatted
the way I want, click the Format Painter command on the Home tab, and then select the text
I want to change. Format Painter is a quick way to make changes
like this easily. Now, let's add some columns to this document.
I think these last three articles would look good formatted into columns.
It will really help to set the top article apart and draw attention to it.
To add columns, select the text you want to format.
Select the Page Layout tab, and left-click the Columns command.
Select the number of columns you would like. I think 2 will look good, so I'll just click
it and the columns appear in my document. This looks pretty good.
Now, let's click the Show/Hide command on the Home tab just so we can see our paragraph
marks and section breaks. As you start tweaking your document a bit,
turning this feature on and off can be helpful. You may also want to make sure your ruler
is turned on. I think I want to add a little something at
the top of my newsletter to help divide this first article from the rest and really emphasize
it. I think a border around this title will look
really good. Now, I could use the Borders command, but
this only allows me to use straight lines or BorderArt.
What I'd like to do is insert a shape that will create a border around this section.
I think a rounded rectangle will look good. It will match the rounded corners on my picture.
Now, you may be wondering... Where did my text and image go? Don't worry!
It's still there. It's just hidden.
By default, the shape appears over everything else in the document area.
What we need to do is change the order of our shape, text, and image.
This just means we're going to change what appears on top, or how the items are layered.
Just right-click the shape and in the menu that appears, select Order.
See all the choices? If I select Bring to Front, this shape will stay at the front,
that's not what I want. In this case, I need to select Send Behind
Text. This will make it so my text and image are
displayed on top of the shape. Let me just resize the shape a bit.
As you can see, ordering is a great feature, especially when dealing with shapes and images
that you may need to layer on top of each other to create the look you want in your
document. You may want to give it a try in this document,
or open a blank document and really play around with how you can order various items like
text, shapes, clip art, and more. Have fun!