Not being much of a graphic design artist I am always fascinated by those who are really good at it and can make even the most boring of material seem so inviting and interesting. For example, years ago I use to work in the pharmaceutical industry and each year there was this trade show where all the scientists would gather and discuss among themselves the latest research, findings and so on. To me that sounds as about as interesting as sitting in an empty room watching the paint dry on the walls.
Nevertheless the posters, flyers and other promotional materials that were distributed for this event was the most top notch quality I have seen. After looking at this marketing material it actually made the event seem interesting, fun and something you wanted to go check out (until I actually got there).
Although I can not promise you that you will be the next great desktop publisher from this article, I can tell you that you will be able to reformat your Microsoft Word documents into multiple columns to make it more visually appealing.
Reformatting your Microsoft Word documents so that each page has multiple columns on them is super easy (super easy? Ok I will go with that). Below are the steps you need to take in order to accomplish this task.
Open up Microsoft Word and then open up a document that you have previously created. In order to get the full affects of these steps your document should be at least one full page in length of text. If it is longer than one page that is great and will demonstrate this process even better.
Now that you have your Microsoft Word document loaded you will notice at the top of the screen menu options labeled, “File”, “Edit”, “View”, “Insert” and so on. Click the menu option labeled, “Format”. Doing so will bring up a submenu, and on that submenu you need to click the option labeled, “Columns”.
The “Columns” window will appear with many options to choose from. For the sake of this article we are going to concentrate on changing the number of columns for our Microsoft Word document. You can play around with the other options later.
Where it says, “Number of Columns”, type in the number “2”. This means that you want your document to have two columns on each page. Go ahead and click the “Ok” button. You will notice that your document has now been reformatted to two columns.
Now wasn't that easy? Go back through the steps and change the columns to a different number until you get the desired look you had in mind. Most brochures have two to four columns and are printed in landscape mode. It makes for a nicer look.
Add some WordArt maybe even some graphics and you will be well on your way to doing some great desktop publishing. That still won't make me want to sit through four hours of talk by scientists but at least your material will look great!
