Issue with column splitting in Word

[Guest]

This might be a really easy solution. When teaching Word to a small group, I
noticed that some users could start a new document, highlight the text, and
split that paragraph into columns without any problem. However, no matter
what one person did, the entire page was split into two columns, not just the
paragraph. I had her make sure that only the paragraph was selected, and I
even had her exit out and go back in, but I didn't have any luck with either.

Could there be something in her general settings that might be contributing
to this? Any suggestions on settings to check would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

I've never seen this particular problem. However... for first stabs, I would
try:

1. Renaming or deleting Normal.dot (Normal.dotm, if this is Word 2007).

2. Renaming or deleting the Data key in the registry:


HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Data

This is for Word 2003. For a different version, you'd need replace 11.0 with
the correct version.

*Standard disclaimer: editing the registry can cause problems if you mess
up, and can destabilize the rotation of the planet. Proceed at your own
risk.*

 

[Jay Freedman]

When you open the Format > Columns dialog, the Apply To dropdown at
the bottom should be set by default to "Selected Text". That causes
Word to insert continuous section breaks before and after the
selection, and apply the new setting only to the section between the
breaks. If for some reason that one person was getting the dropdown
set to "Whole Document", that would cause the behavior you saw. I
don't know what would cause the setting to change, though.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
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[Guest]

Thanks for your help - I figured it was something simple. Much appreciated!

Marty