side by side text

[maggie]

I am in law school and want to keep track of the cases we
are discussing in a narrow column on the left but take
class notes in a wider column on the right. This would
require columns of text that flow side-by-side, instead
of wrapping from one column to another (as they do in a
newsletter) -- in other words I want the column on the
left to go to the next page when it is full, not go to
the column on the right. The help section provided a
very cumbersome procedure that forces me to create the
pages a head of time. As this is for note taking in
class, I don't know how many pages I will have. Any
ideas?

 

[Anon]

I am in law school and want to keep track of the cases we
are discussing in a narrow column on the left but take
class notes in a wider column on the right. This would
require columns of text that flow side-by-side, instead
of wrapping from one column to another (as they do in a
newsletter) -- in other words I want the column on the
left to go to the next page when it is full, not go to
the column on the right.

Use a table instead of columns. If you create a table with two
columns and one row, then it will perform exactly as you want.
You can go from one column to the other with either keystrokes or
mouseclicks, and you can correlate the text with the notes by
using the enter key to create white space where needed.

Each column will continue the way you want, onto the next page.
When/if appropriate, you can create a new row, or delineated set
of notes, by clicking on the menu bar for Table/Insert/Rows Below
[in Word 2002], or perhaps there's an icon you can use.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If you tab out of the last cell, a new row will be created. You will want to
create a new row each time you need to "sync" the notes on the left with the
text on the right, and you should create a new row at least every page,
anyway. It's also a good idea to split the table from time to time, too, as
Word bogs down quickly (and documents are more prone to corruption) when
tables get too long.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

I am in law school and want to keep track of the cases we
are discussing in a narrow column on the left but take
class notes in a wider column on the right. This would
require columns of text that flow side-by-side, instead
of wrapping from one column to another (as they do in a
newsletter) -- in other words I want the column on the
left to go to the next page when it is full, not go to
the column on the right.

Use a table instead of columns. If you create a table with two
columns and one row, then it will perform exactly as you want.
You can go from one column to the other with either keystrokes or
mouseclicks, and you can correlate the text with the notes by
using the enter key to create white space where needed.

Each column will continue the way you want, onto the next page.
When/if appropriate, you can create a new row, or delineated set
of notes, by clicking on the menu bar for Table/Insert/Rows Below
[in Word 2002], or perhaps there's an icon you can use.