The solution that comes to my mind is to set your document margins to the
desired dimensions of the center column where your main text is. On each side
of that you would create a text box that is set to the dimensions of your
desired side columns.
The center column (actually the only 'real' column) is naturally linked from
one page to the next, just as any typical document (text flows from page to
page). The side columns (fake columns that are really text boxes) can be
linked from one to the next (if that effect is desired), but it has to be
done manually. You can set up the document so that text boxes along the left
side are linked to each other and so that the text boxes along the right side
are linked to each other. In that way, text in the side 'columns' can start
on one page and flow to their linked boxes on the next page.
A page layout application is designed to do this without much effort, but if
it must be done in a word processing application (i.e., Word), the linked
text box method is the workaround I would think of using. It is a bit
labor-intensive to set up, but is doable. The text boxes must each,
individually be set to NOT move with text and be positioned absolutely on its
appropriate page. This is the case regardless of whether or not the boxes are
linked to each other. It doesn't sound like in your case you need to link the
boxes—just an option to consider if annotations at the bottom of one page
needs to continue onto the next page along with the main body text.
No matter how well such a template is set up (links or not), care must be
taken in its use to avoid accidentally wiping out text boxes, etc. It is not
a template for an average user, but rather someone who is familiar with the
techniques and just wants to have it ready and have some of the busy-work out
of the way when the document content is provided.
A penny doesn't go a long way anymore, but that's my 2¢.
