Balancing and Spacing Columns

[mcp6453]

Word 2003.

A document has two columns. The text content of each column varies in
length. In the first row, column two has the higher number of lines of
text. If I enter a hard return after the last line of text in column two
and then insert a continuous break, there is a blank line between the
end of column two and the text in the next line now in column one. That
is the desired result.

In the second row, column one has more text than column two. After
entering text in column two, when I insert a continuous break to switch
to column one, there is no blank line preceding the text in column one.
To get the blank line, I have to insert a hard return after the text in
the longer preceding column, which is column one.

Is there a more eloquent way to accomplish this objective? If the text
length in the second row of column one were to decrease such that it is
shorter than column two by at least one line, the blank line ahead of
the next row will disappear. A hard return will have to be manually
added at the end of the now longer column two.

 

[Stefan Blom]

I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to do, but if you want
vertical spacing between the sections, just add some Spacing Before to the
first paragraph of the section after the "column section." Something like
this:

text here.¶ second column
more text.¶ here.¶
First para of text after the column section.¶ <-- Add Spacing Before

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


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