parallel columns

[Guest]

How can I make parallel columns in Word? I don't want newspaper or balanced
columns. I want to be able to go to the top of the next column without having
to enter blank lines. Older versions of WordPerfect had newspaper or parallel
column options. CTRL+Enter took you to the top of the next column. Thank you!

 

[Anne Troy]

Ctrl+Shift+Enter inserts a column break.
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~Anne Troy

www.OfficeArticles.com
www.MyExpertsOnline.com

How can I make parallel columns in Word? I don't want newspaper or balanced
columns. I want to be able to go to the top of the next column without having
to enter blank lines. Older versions of WordPerfect had newspaper or parallel
column options. CTRL+Enter took you to the top of the next column. Thank

you!

 

[garfield-n-odie]

The equivalent of parallel columns in Word is to insert a table
of two columns and however many rows you need (Insert | Table),
and turn off table borders if necessary (Format | Borders and
Shading). It might also help to turn on table gridlines (Table |
Show Gridlines) so you can see where the table cell boundaries
are on the screen. Table gridlines do not print. Don't worry
about getting the exact number of rows perfect when you insert
the table... it's easy enough to add more rows by tabbing through
the last cell in the table, or to delete extra rows by selecting
the extra rows and clicking on Table | Delete | Rows.

 

[Oinophilos]

To amplify, since in these forums it seems many don't see why one would want parallel columns, some of us want to to have side-by-side texts for different purposes.

First, what I want to do is make translations of long texts and have them aligned, the original on the left and the English on the right. If it's a play or an opera for example, each speech has to line up even though the two texts might be of different lengths. So I want two equal columns that can go on for over 100 pages.

The second use wold be to create a column on the righ side of the page for adding notes or commentary on a text that takes up most of the right-hand side of the page. This is pretty much the same purpose, but the notes columnn would not be continuous.

Using tables works pretty well, but it's not as intuitive as the parallel columns in WordPerfect, and I have never understood why Word has never added that feature.

 

[Jack Sprat]

And if you want to have two parallel sets of text (translation, or notes, as Oinophilos said above), a table will not work if you also want to use a Drop Cap - b/c Word puts them in a small text box.

Seriously, why hasn't Word enabled such a feature?